A Pox Upon My Cookies! Help, They're Flat!
For many days over the course of a year, I baked perfect cookies. And then one day, I did not. And every day thereafter, I did not. What happened in between the days? I've done all I know how to figure it out. Last year, I posted a perfect little recipe for Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies that people seemed to love. I whipped those cookies up early and often. Then, a couple weeks ago, they started going flat on me. And, oddly, it was a slow process. First, just their edges cracked and were flat-ish, but they still had a relatively high and cakey middle. Then with the next batch, the edges started cracking and turning way too dark, despite my cooking on a Silpat sheet, which supposedly never burns cookies. So what the hay?! I turned to the internet, where there were many thousands of postings on the flat cookie problem. Answers from experts were exactly as I had predicted. Most likely a butter thing. Suggestions led me to believe the butter was melting and the dough running and spreading out flat before the cookies' edges had time to set. The dough needed to be properly chilled before baking. Nevermind the fact that I had never ever before needed to chill this dough before baking. I figured that was the problem now. So I made up some dough and chilled it. It was rock hard. I baked. They were flatter than EVER before. I lowered the temp of the oven since they also seemed to be burning on bottom now, even with a Silpat. Nevermind I had never lowered the temp before. Anyway, they still flattened. I basically ended up having to pull them out when they were so extremely raw that I couldn't scoop them out of the pan. It was the only way I could keep them from running completely flat and burning on bottom.
Do you know how many batches of dough I've made by this point? How many sticks of butter, cups of flour, etc., trying to figure this out. I have been determined to once again bake the cookies I had baked for a year before the curse set in. Each time, I try to "fix" something different. Next I ditched the Silpat, thinking maybe it had lost its, whatever, Silpatyness. I used parchment paper. What this accomplished was to show me just how much butter I was losing in the baking process. It was running very yellow all over the pan. WHY??!! OH WHY ME, YE WIZARDS OF COOKIE MAKING??!!
Back to the drawing board. What had I done differently? I had started rolling the dough into logs like you might find at the store so I could cut perfectly sized cookies every time. AHA! That must be the problem. I'm overworking the dough. I whipped up another batch and stopped touching it when the dough came together in the bowl. I scooped it with a spoon and never touched it with my hands. (Nevermind that I had rolled and cut the dough many times before without ending up with flat cookies. I ignored that in the name of this mad science.) THIS time it would work. Nope. Flat cookies. I beat the butter, sugar, egg and vanilla very very well together in the first step. Flat cookies. I didn't beat them so well together. Flat cookies. I let the butter get very soft. Flat cookies. I kept the butter very chilled. Flat cookies.
Why, in the name of all that is good about cookies, can't I bake them now? What has happened? A pox on my house? Listen, I was a person who softened the butter by putting in the microwave, rolling the dough into logs or not, leaving the dough out on the counter for an hour while I put people down for naps, etc., and my cookies always came out the same, cakey, wonderful, doughy cookies I intended. Until one day they did not, and now no matter what I do, the good cookies won't return. I am so truly baffled, I cannot do anything but beg an expert to tell me what to do. I promise you people, I have not changed anything, until I started changing everything in an effort to figure this out.
Is it my pans? My ovens? ARRRRRGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
--Sweet B
copyrighted photo of flat cookie courtesy of The Repressed Pastry Chef at I Really Like Food dot com.
Melissa Trainer on February 22, 2010 at 07:13 PM
I don't have an answer for you Sweet B, but I have a few thoughts/questions. First of all, have you been using the same brand of butter or have you switched brands...maybe the water content in the butter is different amongst the different brands? And,have you checked the temperature of your oven by using an oven thermometer? The temperature query doesn't exactly address the flat cookie thing but it could be part of the burnt edge problem. And, finally, have you been using the same baking pan? This is indeed a conundrum!
Melissa A. Trainer
abaker on February 22, 2010 at 07:30 PM
Perhaps your baking soda has lost its oomph? That would track with the gradually greater flatness. Try a new box and see if it helps.
Melissa Trainer on February 22, 2010 at 07:37 PM
Ahhh. Abaker could be right...it could definitely be the baking soda if it's an old box...
Melissa A. Trainer
HopeSew on February 22, 2010 at 08:04 PM
Ooh, good catch, abaker. Never would have thought of it. I wonder how often baking soda that's used for baking should be demoted to cleaning and replaced with a fresh box.
jasonholliston on February 22, 2010 at 08:04 PM
Are you using baking powder? Baking soda's shelf life is very, very long, but baking powder starts losing it's lift in 6-9 months. That's a cheap test.
where'd my cookie mojo go? on February 22, 2010 at 09:50 PM
You have no idea how happy I am to hear that I am not the only one that has lost my cookie mojo! I have baked the same recipe for years and then, like you, one day they were flat!!! I thought it was my mom's ancient wedgewood stove, so I made them in a friend's new stove. Then I thought, maybe my ingredients aren't fresh enough, so I purchased new flour, sugar, butter, baking powder.....event salt!! Still flat cookies. This is a completely unsolved mystery that has left me befuddled and not wanting to bake cookies, lest they turn out flat and lifeless. I too would love an answer!
Sweet B on February 22, 2010 at 09:57 PM
Oh, thanks everyone. These are all good thoughts. I checked my baking soda and it says best by May 11, 2010. That's coming up. I bought it within the last 6 or so months. Could that really be it? Only a new box will tell...
I have a big oven and a little oven that I use, and they both make flat cookies. I haven't tested them with thermometers, but I guess because I didn't think they would both go off course at the same time. Maybe they have. It would be on par with the rest of the appliances in my house!
Butter--I mostly use 365 brand since Whole Foods has been a regular shopping place. Does it matter whether it's salted or unsalted? I've never really discerned a difference using those in foods, so I've been inconsistent there. Sometimes salted, sometimes no. Last week I used Lucerne brand since my husband bought it instead of me. So that could be something..do you know if that brand has a big water content?
I have used the same pan and Silpat liner every time. It's the only sheet pan I own. See previous posts regarding my very college-esque kitchen with regard to supplies instead of grownup kitchen and supplies.
Marjorie on February 22, 2010 at 11:37 PM
I usually get flat cookies if the dough doesn't have enough flour. Have you changed how you measure flour or changed brands? Whole Wheat flour really varies in how finely it is ground. Are you measuring it differently...like sifting it or fluffing it up and spooning it into the cup instead of using the measuring cup as a scoop? Next time, try adding an extra tablespoon (or 2) of flour...
Dkschmidt on February 23, 2010 at 07:17 AM
Many of the comments from individuals are good to check, water in butter(soften the butter till malleable then press against side of bowl or counter to remove excess water) Try half crisco half butter,
I would get an oven thermometer just on principle so you have a standard to go by and each oven will be different can't guarantee the smaller one will be the same as the large one. and once you know that you can check accordingly. Baking soda and powder always good to have fresh stock. The other possibility is the flour, Bakers weigh flour for good reason depending on humidity, warm dryer winter months flour will be dryer and absorb more moisture in a recipe it will weigh lighter etc.Whole wheat flour does respond different then rregular flour with the addition of the bran in whole wheat it absorbs moisture differently in breads I try to presoak the flour with the liquid to allow more moisture uptake and make it more tender. I wouldn't do that with the cookies though my best guess is either the temp in the oven or the butter
Solticeart on February 23, 2010 at 10:13 AM
I have had this happen to me over the years on and off, and since I was baking for my kids when they were young I wasn't too worried about it.. as long as they were edible cookies my kids didn't much care ..lol... but somedays my cookies would be flat and chewey ( I personally liked this kind better) and some puffy and cruncy. I always wondered why...... someone told me its the time of year and has to do with the humidity in the air.. I would have also thought it was the flour or the butter since when I was baking I went thru alot of flour and butter ( and different brands of butter and depending on whats on sale) but not the other things as fast as those two... so Id ck them first and look into if humidity and time of year can have something to do with it.Id love to find out why myself!
Eric Ericson on February 23, 2010 at 03:44 PM
So, it's the baking soda that generates CO2 to produce rise in all quickbreads (e.g. your cookies).
I'd swap out the baking soda to start with. There's a chance it got contaminated or had some other issue.
Joseph on February 26, 2010 at 01:42 PM
I think you may have a few different things going on at once.
I am really surprised you ever got puffy cookies using butter. Generally, butter is used for flat cookies and shortening for puffy cookies. Maybe you could try half and half (to retain some buttery flavor).
The other thing is I think the protein content of your flour has changed without your knowledge. I looked at your original posting for these cookies to check out the formula and noticed from the photo your current cookies are not only flatter, they are also darker. Using higher protein flour will do that to cookies, make them flatter and darker. The protein content in wheat flour can vary considerably. The gradual change in your cookies also suggests that you may have bought a new bag of flour and over time used more of the new and less of the old (mixed in the same container etc)? Try substituting some cake flour for a portion of the whole wheat.
One last thing you might try is to substitute ~1 1/2 tsp of baking powder for the 1 tsp baking soda. This will help to maintain a low pH in the dough which limits spreading and flattening.
I hate to say this, but in your early experience with this cookie, you may have just gotten lucky.
Good luck!
Carolyn T on February 27, 2010 at 12:27 PM
When I used to make the usual chocolate chip cookie I sometimes had this problem and resolved it finally by adding an additional 2 T. of flour to the batter. If you're using butter, they DO tend to make flatter cookies. My suggestion: make the batter, including the additional 2 T flour, then bake just one or two cookies. If they're still flat, add another 1-2 T flour. That should do it. Hope that helps.
JAL on February 28, 2010 at 06:25 AM
Baking soda and the salt.
Mackay Rippey on February 28, 2010 at 06:43 AM
If it's not the baking soda it might be old eggs. Old eggs bake differently than fresh eggs.
My mother makes a fantastically rich and dense pound cake. She came to visit and used fresh eggs from our farm and the pound cake was light and fluffy!
Dense cookies? Old eggs? You be the judge.
novacookie on February 28, 2010 at 07:17 AM
See if your top element in the oven is still heating. If all your heating is being done by the bottom element, it would cause some problems, taking the oven longer to heat to temp, and directing way too much heat to the bottom of the cookies.
Farenheit 350 on February 28, 2010 at 07:24 AM
I have several ideas. One is that you are overcreaming your butter. I worked briefly for a baker who was a pro at cakes and desserts but decided to open a cookie store. He had no idea how to make cookies and approached them like cakes, creaming the butter until it was smooth smooth smooth. His cookies were immense failures just like this. I never cream butter and sugar that much. If it starts to change color and become lighter while mixing in the bowl, it is way too much. One way to know if you are over beating is to watch them as the are cooking. If they "souffle", that is they rise up lovely and look awesome and then suddenly flatter at the end, you are overcreaming.
However, I suspect that your flour to butter ratio is way off, because these look way too buttery in general. The golden cookie ratio for white flour recipes is 1 lb of butter to 3 eggs to 4-5 cups of flour. Generally we mix them starting with 4 cups of flour and then check the consistency. If it is at all sticky, we add more flour, very gradually. As you say, don't overwork it. If you are making a regular home batch of cookies (like a 1/2 pound butter recipe), add an additional 1/4 cup of flour, check it, add again, check, until you are at the right consistency. Do this BEFORE you add chips, raisins, etc. I feel that they are right when the dough doesn't stick to your fingers anymore and has some of its own shape. But not too floury. If I were there, I could show you what is "just right." We crank out grosses of cookies every day, and we mix EVERY single batch individually (in 3 pound butter batches) and check each individually. If you follow the recipe to the "T" each time without adjusting, you will fail if any variable changes (like flour, humidity, temperature of ingredients, temp of butter, etc.). Also we never soften butter in micro. Either (1) leave it out on the counter to soften (also temper your eggs at same time, and any milk or cream that is in your recipe if any), or (2) cream it a little bit longer. Silpats are great at home, but in the kitchen we use parchment paper, which works great.
My last question, since these are whole wheat, is this. There are MANY different types of whole wheat flour (as I am sure you know). There is traditional, white, pastry, etc. These produce incredibly different results. If you go down from a heartier grind to a finer grind, that would change everything. Like if you had been using traditional and inadvertently changed to white WW, that would really explain it. Or from white to pastry. I would think you would have noticed as soon as you opened the flour that it was different, but maybe not. I only suggest this since your recipe link does not specify what type of WW flour to use. It just says Bob's Red Mill, so I don't know what grind that is, so if you switched inadvertently, you may be using different type entirely. Also being WW, have you ever let them stand before so that the wheat can absorb the moisture first? This is common for breads, so maybe you were or were not doing this previously and it affected your dough.
And really lastly, yes salted vs. unsalted makes a difference. Always use unsalted for cookies.
Let us know what you figure out!!
Good luck!
cokeemonster on February 28, 2010 at 08:04 AM
Global warming caused it!
BlackFlagQ55 on February 28, 2010 at 09:03 AM
I have the exact same problem. But not just cookies. Baked goods of every kind. ESPECIALLY risen yeast breads and rolls.
For years and years I was the baker. Didn't know it but I was turning out 'artisan' breads while everyone else was turning out Bisquick. Baguettes, foccacias, Russian Black Bread, ciabatta, boule, pain vennois ... biscuits as light as a cloud, crispy crust and feathery.
Now it's all glop, dense, chewy, crusts don't brown, cookies fall flat, my cakes are dense instead of airy. I built an outdoor wood fired oven to re-create baker's specialty ovens with total radiant heat. Made no difference. Tried all sorts of flour-vendors. Made no difference. Reached out across the Atlantic for Italian and French bread flours. Made no difference. Took up sourdough and that was a disaster because nothing ever bubbled in three years of excrutiatingly careful attention.
One day I discovered a fabulous Baking Science website.
http://www.bakingandbakingscience.com/
If it isn't in here, it's never been discovered. Everything regarding the science and alchemy of baking from a science-oriented view by a lifetime professional.
Two things I discovered -
1. Hard water. Soft water destroys gluten. Much of America's water is hard, and is why so many people marvel at how easy baking is. But if your water source changes and goes soft, well ... good luck. Don't argue with me on that one. You'll lose.
2. All our ingredients are being corrupted. Wheat is GMO. Even the stuff labeled non-GMO. Yeast are no longer pure, and there is informed experience that states that virtually every packaged yeast is from the same culture. Water is corrupted. Chocolate is no longer chocolate but fats made to taste like chocolate. Most vanilla 'extracts' are produced as a by-product of wood pulping plants. And on and on.
All the above 'suggestions' do not take into account the author's stated excellence and experience and perfect results in baking cookies. She already knows what to do. She's been doing it. She wants to know what SYSTEMICALLY has changed.
I can't tell you Sweet B ... but you darn sure aren't alone. I've been baking successfully for 30 years. Then, one day, nothing ever worked again. No changes of any kind. Whatever suggestion anyone here will make will not apply. It's straight across the board ... nothing baked works like it used to.
My experience mirrors yours.
Just to let you know you;re not alone.
Havelock on February 28, 2010 at 09:26 AM
I also suffer the flat cookie syndrome. I've tried many variables and I have given up - and I AM a scientist by training. But it is beyond my powers of empiricism. Adding more flour just makes the cookies taste like dough - it doesn't help them rise.
On the other hand, in the halcyon days when I could make cookies, I frequently could not bake a yellow cake mix - it came out flat and spongy. Now the cakes are fine, the cookies abysmal. I think the oven has mysteries we cannot fathom....
Don meaker on February 28, 2010 at 10:01 AM
Its the hope and change....
Mojave baker on February 28, 2010 at 10:51 AM
Oh thank you. I'm not alone. I have been having similar troubles with old tried-and-true recipes for the past couple of years. Tried new baking soda. Got new yeast. Experimented with about 30 different flours, and different brands of just about everything from butter to salt. Used RO water, bottled water, even Perrier. Two new ovens, one a convection oven (and I added high-end temp sensors from the lab supply house Just To Make Sure the temperature was correct). I've tried using a bread machine, the dough hook on the KitchenAid, my own sweat and tears. My results generally taste okay, but they just aren't baking the way they used to. My breads especially are a huge disappointment; I used to be the Homemade Bread Wizard in my neighborhood. I have lab books full of notes on what I did, and what happened, and I am at a loss to understand what's wrong. Perhaps the Solar System is in a bad-for-bakers part of the galaxy? Some star has exploded and too many high energy particles are hitting us? Anyway, Sweet B, you are, alas, not alone in your puzzlement and frustration.
BlackFlagQ55 on February 28, 2010 at 11:33 AM
Mojave Baker - right on.
Meanwhile, places like feshloaf.com the participants keep right on making suggestions rather than actually listening that ... for many of us .... something radically, remarkably and disastrously changed the course of our multi-decade baking skills and nothing ... absolutely nothing can be found to explain it.
Havelock, I understand 100%.
Lola on February 28, 2010 at 11:41 AM
Sweet B, I have run into this problem myself and I think it is the flour. Recently, I noticed that when I baked my favorite box mix brownies, the texture was completely wrong. I wrote to the company and they said they have to get their flour from different sources, plus the growing conditions of the grain can affect the texture. I believe this may be the trouble with the cookies as well- perhaps something to do with the gluten level. In any event, I would try different sources of flour and see if that helps. Good luck!
TallDave on February 28, 2010 at 01:39 PM
Two words: global warming.
Seriously, though, it might be a seasonal change in your relative humidity that's causing this. I see someone else noted the same above.