How to stop cookies from spreading?

[K8memphis]

Evertime I scroll by this thread I'm prompted to wanna ask how do you keep other areas from spreading when you eat the cookies...but alas I know it's hopeless.

[Toliver]

Alton Brown, whose baking advice is mostly accurate in my opinion, had an episode of "Good Eats" where he covered "American Cookies". It is called "Three chips for Sister Martha". There he covered all changes necessary to transform (drop) cookie recipes from thin to puffy to chewy. Very interesting! Here you can find a transscript of the show. This might be helpful to increase the spread of your cookies.

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Isn't that interesting? He uses cake flour for his "The Puffy" cookies as well as some baking soda.

Doughs with a high ratio of butter to a low ratio of flour will spread. A good example of this is the Irish Lace cookie which usually calls for 2 sticks of butter while using a scant 1/2 cup of flour.

As you (ShoeBox Oven) suggested, perhaps upping the amount of flour would also help decrease the spread.

[highchef]

ok, I'm going to suggest a change in recipe. If you are wanting "Basically my cookie is meant to come out solid and round but it is spreading out flat. "

then I tend to think you've got a sugar problem. LIGHT, buttery cookies tend to have a bit of cornstarch in them, (think shortbread) and use a lighter sugar. this cookie uses both, and it comes out perfectly, if a bit fraigle. If you lose the lemon, you'd have a butter cookie. I think the molasses in the sugar is bringing the structure down as it melts as was suggested earlier. Has anyone tried this recipe to see if they have the same problem? I don't have a butter cookie recipe exactly...I always have to put chips or something in them to appease the masses. I could drop the chocolate and see what happens.

The only other thing I can think of is to fortify the flour. I swear the bakery here known for their fat balls of choc. chip cookies puts oat flour in there to hold the shape, but she swears she doesn't and I can't prove it! She says she just freezes them before baking, but I've tried that and it doesn't do it for me.

Please let us know if you resolve this, I am very curious.

[Sugarnspice]

Ok, I will try the recipe tomorrow (not times 4 though )!

From reading the recipe I have a very particular cookie in mind. It's appearance differs from the ones linked to or mentioned above.

Being from Europe, I found a German website with a picture of what I believe resembles the result I would shoot for with the recipe that "started it all". Please forgive the different language, it is just about a picture of those cookies so that ShoeBox Oven can varify whether I am on the right track at all.

I was also surprised by the brown sugar in the recipe, but I would like to give the recipe a try with modifications in procedure rather than ingredients, because the first post said:

I have a great french butter cookie recipe that tastes good

I'll be back with my results. I am so glad I finally started to post instead of just read and enjoy .

[etalanian]

I just ran across this thread. I read every response, but I did not see where the recipe is from. Did you get this recipe from somewhere overseas, or from a book? Have you seen and/or eaten the cookies? (Are you sure the correct recipe was given to you?)

My feeling is that the ingredients are different over here, and that is the main problem.

The butter has more butterfat (and less water) overseas.

The flour varies considerably, and there is no indication as to what type of flour was used.

Sugars are also different. Europeans use more superfine for baking than we do. I am not familiar with their brown sugars, but that might also be different.

Try using a butter with higher butterfat. The reason shortening cookies don't spread as much is because shortening contains no water.

If that doesn't work, try adding a little more flour, maybe 5-10%. Or try combining flour types; use a 10% cake flour substitution (by weight). What type of flour are you using?

Don't add a leavener, but you might add a small amount of cream of tartar (a naturally occurring acid) with the flour.

Let us know how this goes.

Best,

Eileen

[Sugarnspice]

Overcreaming it is!!!

I made the dough yesterday, creaming it until just cobined, less than a minute for one time batch. Adding the egg and vanilla also just until mixed and then the flour.

In my opinion they worked well enough and baked OK even at 350 F. I took a picture and will post it later once I figure out how .

I will also post the amounts of flour etc. that I used (measured by volume and then scaled to make sure one can acurately recreate the batch).

Later more

[ShoeBox Oven]

i think it is overcreaming the butter. this recipe has worked before so i cannot blame it on the formula. and i use an oven thermometer. so i think it is a matter of overcreaming the butter and possibly (since I'm multiplying the recipe) I need to add a bit more flour. Thank you all for your interest and advice!

[Sugarnspice]

Even though this thread seems to be closed, I promised the recipe with the amounts I took by volume and then scaled them. With only a little creaming and resting them in the fridge overnight, I got good results, that resemblesd the picture I linked to before. Spreading was minimal, I would say only as much as necessary and desired for a tender cookie (now, barely a day later, all have already been eaten by my family).

Aside from the changes just mentioned I stuck to the original recipe including the oven temperature and scaled out the ingredients after measuring according to the original post:

2 sticks butter

150 g (5.25 oz.) light brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

1 tsp. salt (I used less, about 1/2 tsp.)

375 g (13.25 oz.) all-purpose flour (mine is unbleached and fairly high in protein, not sure if I am allowed to mention brand names)

They were easy to prepare and quite tasty.