Cookie Problem: puffy and moundy
Food blogs/magazines always have pictures of flat cookies all stacked up high, beauties with ripples and ridges. MY cookies are puffy, like little mountains, and most definitely not stackable. They are still very good, but never turn out like the pictures.
What step am I missing/doing incorrectly?
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15 Comments:
Too much leavener. Or beating too much air into the batter when creaming the butter and sugar?
sarar at 6:43PM on 08/04/09
Only use baking soda, not baking powder.
lexophile at 7:40PM on 08/04/09
I thought this was going to be a hip hop related question about those cooky rappers.
inkandsausages at 7:42PM on 08/04/09
I see.. ok, I will try less leavenings... Do people normally flatten the cookie dough on the sheet? I normally leave them mounded...
chlamers at 7:47PM on 08/04/09
How funny - I use baking powder almost exclusively and don't have any puffiness problems. Try this... slightly underbake your cookies and when they come out of the oven, rap the pan evenly on the counter. The cookies should deflate and will be soft enough to shape shift to the flatter cookies you prefer.
therealchiffonade at 9:13PM on 08/04/09
Ingredients ROOM temp. Do not overmix and make sure your oven temp is calibrated. Moundy puffy spots are signs of temp changes and or overbeating.
JerzeeTomato at 10:22PM on 08/04/09
Flattening the scooped-out cookie dough does seem to make a difference. For example, when baking chocolate chip cookies, I flatten the ball of dough to about 1/2" thick with the heel of my hand. This gives me uniform, thin, cookies. Otherwise, the cookies often end up fat in the center and unevenly baked.
salpico at 11:53PM on 08/04/09
What kind of cookies? Where is the recipe from?
betteirene at 12:31AM on 08/05/09
I find my Toll House-variant cookies much puffier when I make them with cold butter. If the butter and eggs are at room temperature, they flatten out better.
I've seen recipes involving melted butter, but not tried them. I imagine they're the flattest of all!
wendolen at 1:35AM on 08/05/09
Alton Brown did a show about this: 3 chocolate chip cookie recipes: the crispy, the puffy, and the chewy.
I was thrilled because even though I followed my mother's recipe they didn't come out as thin and crisp as hers. For me, it was needing to cream the butter and sugar when the butter was colder than I had been doing, which was counterintuitive. But as soon as Alton said it I knew he was right, because my mother had me cream the cool butter with the sugar and it was a pain, and I resolved to make it easier for myself when I made them on my own, and let the butter warm up more.
Unfortunately Alton doesn't actually explain in the recipes what makes the differences, but some of it is the shortening and how it's treated, and the protein content of the flour. Surprisingly little has to do with the leavening, at least in the case of the chocolate chip recipes. You can figure some of it out just by comparing the three recipes, which you can find on FN
lemonfair at 6:53AM on 08/05/09
I use a recipe that involves melted butter, but because I chill the dough in the fridge for 1-2 days, they are never too flat. I give the dough a bit of time to warm up (but not too much) before baking, because ice-cold dough won't spread. I don't have the handy cookie dough scooper, so I use a metal spoon that come with my canister.. so the dough is dome shaped prior to baking.
also I have different cookie sheets, and they give me slightly different flatness.
hmw0029 at 7:57AM on 08/05/09
One more trick: about halfway through the cooking time (5 minutes?) take the tray out of the oven, rap it on the bottom with your (protected) hand or slam it on the top of the oven (this is what I do), and then return it to the oven to finish. This will knock some of the air out of the cookies as they bake. It's also a good time to reverse the tray so they bake more evenly - I need to do this in my oven.
Bakerloo Line at 11:00AM on 08/05/09
Use butter. Don't use margarine or shortening.
Or, move to high altitude where cookies do strange things sometimes. Just kidding about that, but it's funny because there are some cookie recipes that I want to be all moundy and puffy and bumpy, and since I moved to high altitude, I'm not getting that result any more. Same recipe, exactly. And same recipe, adjusted for high altitude. I'm not sure if it's altitude related, or if it's different ingredients, since certain brands that I was used to before aren't available here.
dbcurrie at 1:01PM on 08/05/09
I agree with the requirement to flatten the cookies. Most of the flat cooky recipies I see tell you to dip a glass in sugar and press the cookies down before baking. You may as well try it chlamers and see if you like the result.
morgancain at 3:42PM on 08/05/09
Sounds like some great tips. I will try and see what happens. With glorious hope, the next batch of cookies will be stackable!
Thanks to everyone for their input!!! :)
chlamers at 5:28PM on 08/05/09