Hello, I’m in NO way a seasoned baker and always seem to have a hard time baking sweets. I’m following a very easy chocolate chip cookie dough recipe that calls for melting butter in the microwave and then mixing it with sugar. I follow the instructions exactly and my dough will never end up crumbly so I can work it into dough balls at the end. I’m going to assume it’s because of the butter but I have no idea, because my second attempt at the dough, after following the exact same steps and measurements, was perfect. But the first attempt had to be throw away because the dough was stickier than you can imagine. Any suggestions about what I did wrong? I’m confident I measured everything correctly. Was the butter too hot perhaps? Thank you!
Sticky and Runny Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
- Thread starter DarbyLynn
- Start date
I’d like to clarify that I’ve made this four times; the first need to be thrown away and no amount of flour could fix it, the second was perfect. Fast forward to currently. Tonight my third attempt was much like the first and the final attempt ended up perfect again. A mystery!
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I’m kind of hoping someone else answers this. I have terrible luck with cookies (except for shortbread; I do make decent shortbread).
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1. Did you bake by weight or volume? If you baked by volume that’s your first problem. If you used volume, did you use the same measurement method as the recipe developer? Volume measurement is the wrong way to bake to begin with because it’s so inaccurate. You can cram anywhere from 120g - 155g flour in a measuring cup. To have any hope of using the same weight as the recipe developer, you need to use the same method for filling the measuring cup.
2. Do you know what type of flour the recipe developer used? What was the protein content? Was it bleached or unbleached? These things matter because the absorption rate of the flour varies dramatically depending on the protein content and whether or not it’s bleached.
3. What was the butterfat content of the butter used by the recipe developer? do you use a comparable butter? The lower the butterfat the more water in the butter.
4. What was the weight of the eggs? Eggs contain a significant amount of water. That’s the problem with these hacks who throw up recipes on blogs. They don’t use Baker’s percentages so you have no idea the percentage of egg to flour. Eggs are the single greatest source of water in a cookie dough. You have to know what the weight of the eggs are in a cookie dough. And the only way to know that is to bake by weight and know the baker’s percentages of all our ingredient.
2. Do you know what type of flour the recipe developer used? What was the protein content? Was it bleached or unbleached? These things matter because the absorption rate of the flour varies dramatically depending on the protein content and whether or not it’s bleached.
3. What was the butterfat content of the butter used by the recipe developer? do you use a comparable butter? The lower the butterfat the more water in the butter.
4. What was the weight of the eggs? Eggs contain a significant amount of water. That’s the problem with these hacks who throw up recipes on blogs. They don’t use Baker’s percentages so you have no idea the percentage of egg to flour. Eggs are the single greatest source of water in a cookie dough. You have to know what the weight of the eggs are in a cookie dough. And the only way to know that is to bake by weight and know the baker’s percentages of all our ingredient.