more cookie help

[gertdog]

I feel like every other week I am posting a plea for help with cookie baking! 'Tis the season, I guess...

I made a recipe from the December Sunset magazine called Coconut-Cranberry Chews. Followed the recipe to the letter, with two small exceptions (see below). I froze most of the dough, but baked one sheet because I'd never made these before and wanted to taste them. The cookies taste WONDERFUL, but they look terrible! Instead of nice, flat rounds with smooth edges, mine have a very thin crisp golden edge around the outside, and then a giant hunk of dough, still mostly in ball form, sitting on top. The bottoms did not brown at all, even with additional oven time.

Here is what the directions said to do: Heat oven to 350. Form dough into 1" balls and place 2" apart on a buttered baking sheet. Bake until edges are just golden, 8-11 minutes.

I used a cookie scoop to form the dough into balls, and it makes 1 1/4" balls. And I lined the baking sheets with silpat mats instead of buttering them.

What could I do differently? I've thought of placing the cookie sheet closer to the bottom of the oven (I baked them in the middle last night), increasing the heat and bake time a bit, and flattening the dough balls a little bit before baking so they spread more evenly.

I have dough for 5 dozen more cookies in the freezer... any suggestions for improving their appearance would be most appreciated! I'd like this recipe to be a winner in both taste AND appearance! :)

[laurenc]

gertdog - I don't have too much advice to offer unfortunately - however I think that flattening the dough balls a bit would help. I used to have a similar problem with a cookie recipe and now I flatten each one using the bottom of a glass and they come out with a perfect shape. Good luck!

P.S. would you mind posting the recipe -they sound really yummy!

[Laura B]

It may have helped to flatten the dough balls out. Then you would not have a big ball in the middle and thin edges. Granted, many cookies can be in balls and will flatten themselves right out. Maybe these would benefit from being smushed!

Also, maybe if you had buttered the sheets instead of using your silpats, the cookies would have browned more on the bottom. The ease of using a silpat and no added fat, would probably win out with me over browned bottoms, though. If they taste good, who cares about a browned bottom?

[Mamasue]

Well, I don't know what advice to give you. Every dough that I have rolled in ball flattens out on its own. Hmmmm. And the silpats would not change the form of the dough. Maybe the problem is the recipe. I really can't tell unless I saw the results or if you post the recipe maybe I can tell by the steps in making the dough.

[gertdog]

Doh, I should have thought to post the recipe from the start. Here it is. Thanks all for the advice so far!

from Sunset magazine Dec. '01
Coconut-Cranberry Chews

Nancy Jamison, Woodside, CA

Nancy Jamison was right when she wrote us that these cookies are addictive. We loved their
combination of coconut, cranberries, and orange. In fact, these straightforward, tasty rounds are everything a holiday cookie should be. The mixture will look dry until it comes together as a dough. If it's too crumbly to form into balls, the dough needs to be mixed longer; it should be a smooth, homogeneous mass.

PREP AND COOK TIME: About 1 hour

MAKES: About 6 dozen cookies

About 1 1/2 cups (3/4 lb.) butter or margarine, at room temperature
2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon grated orange peel
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups dried cranberries
1 1/2 cups sweetened flaked dried coconut

1. In a large bowl, with a mixer on medium speed, beat 1 1/2 cups butter, sugar, orange peel, and vanilla until smooth.

2. In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and salt. Add to butter mixture, stir to mix, then beat on low speed until dough comes together, about 5 minutes (see note at left). Mix in cranberries and coconut.

3. Shape dough into 1-inch balls and place about 2 inches apart on buttered 12- by 15-inch baking sheets.

4. Bake in a 350° regular or convection oven until cookie edges just begin to brown, 8 to 11 minutes (shorter baking time will yield a chewier cookie; longer baking time will yield a crispier cookie). If baking two sheets at once in one oven, switch their positions halfway through baking. Let cookies cool on sheets for 5 minutes, then use a wide spatula to transfer to racks to cool
completely.

Per cookie: 92 cal., 45% (41 cal.) from fat; 0.7 g protein; 4.5 g fat (2.8 g sat.); 12 g carbo (0.4 g fiber); 58 mg sodium; 10 mg chol.

[Peeps]

This won't help you with the ones you already made - but did you use butter? If you did, butter tends to make thinner, spread-ier cookies so that may have been part of the problem of the edges spreading - although I know it doesn't explain the blob in the center. I always prefer margerine in cookies, I think it just makes for a smoother, more even spread and baking and I like the texture better too.
But for now, I would also suggest squishing the balls with the bottom of a glass.
Good luck - I'm glad to hear they are good because I've had this recipe in my "to try" pile for awhile!

[funnybone]

Could it be your actual oven temperature? It may be off. Or maybe you should position your rack differently in your oven. I don't think you should increase your temp. as they are crisping on the outside anyway. I bake most of my cookies on the rack just below the middle. Just keep an eye on them as they are approaching the end of the bake time.

I don't think that the butter/margarine thing would cause them to almost underbake in the center. I only use butter and NEVER have that problem.

[Mamasue]

Okay, the only thing that I would say is this....

This recipe looks like a basic rich butter cookie dough which in my experience with these type of recipes the cookie when shaped in whatever shape you make them will bake just that way. Sort of like the Wedding Cookies/Russian Cakes/Snowballs/Crescent, etc. These kind of doughs will stay in the shape that you make them. I have the opposite experience than Peeps. Using butter has less liquid (water) and doughs tend to keep their shape and not spread as much as margarine. I find that when using margarine my cookies spread a little flatter. Did you use margarine?

I don't have any answer for you. The cookie should hold its shape as a ball, in my opinion. Sorry gertdog! Good luck with the remainder. I also don't thing that freezing would have affected it either. A mystery! :)

[gertdog]

Thanks all for your help!

I will dig out my oven thermometer and check the oven temp. I did use butter, not margarine in the cookies, to answer one of the questions.

Mamasue, I think you may have hit on it. You're right... it is a rich butter cookie dough, and reflecting on other recipes with similar ingredients, they do indeed tend to hold their shape when baking. The recipe calls for shaping the dough into round balls, which are supposed to spread and flatten during baking. But butter cookies don't tend to do that, you're right! I hadn't really thought of that. So I think I will try flattening the dough balls into thick rounds and see what that does.

Thanks!

[claire797]

Gertdog,

Try buttering the cookie sheet and not using the silpat. I think this will help because a buttered cookie sheet causes cookies to spread. I had the opposite problem with a cookie recipe that spread too much. When I stopped buttering the cookie sheet, they were nice and puffy again. So make another batch using a buttered cookie sheet AND maybe pat them down a little bit.

[gertdog]

I baked the rest of the cookie dough last weekend, and found that two changes made a real difference in how the cookies turned out.

First, I flattened all of the dough balls using the bottom of a drinking glass dipped in flour. The dough rounds were thick... about 2.5" across at the most.

Second, I baked some on a parchment-lined baking sheet and some on a silpat.

The results: Much prettier cookies! Flattening the dough balls helped the dough to bake more evenly and they did spread out and flatten a bit more. The edges still browned before the bottom did, but they looked good and tasted fine.

The surprise (to me anyway): the parchment worked better than the silpat. The silpat cookies got those same crisp lacy edges that bothered me on the first batch. The parchment cookies spread a little, but didn't develop the lacy edges or as much browning, so they baked more evenly overall.

Thanks again for the help... I can now recommend the recipe, but definitely add the step of flattening the dough!

[RunnerKim]

Gertdog - glad you found a solution. I just had a cookie exchange at work where 3 people brought these (out of 17 people)! They all looked different. I wasn't paying too close attention to their discussion, but I do recall one of them asking the others if they flattened theirs. One batch was rather flat with uneven edges - in some ways like what you were describing. Amazing that the same recipe can produce such different results by different people!

Kim