How to keep cookies with the butter from spreading

Use less sugar, or less butter, or both (what I do). My basic recipe calls for 1C butter, 2C sugar, 2C flour, and I use 3/4 C butter and

1-1/2C sugar. The cookies taste just fine and don't spread nearly as far as they did when I followed the recipe. My kids love them, and so do the grownups.

Add another egg. (I've heard this works, but haven't tried it yet.)

jenn

-- Jenn Ridley snipped-for-privacy@chartermi.net

You can even get away with using no shortening at all, and using pure butter. The key thing you need to do is increase the proportion of eggs in your recipe. I think 3 eggs will make it a bit too cakey, so a better bet would be either to add an extra egg, but increase the other ingredients by a somewhat smaller amount than 1/2 again as much, or reduce all the other ingredients by some small amount. You'll still need to experiment a little to get the thickness/puffiness level you want, but it shouldn't take too long. Remember that small adjustments produce big results, so, for instance, merely adjusting all the other ingredients than eggs downward by

7/8 could easily be enough to make all the difference.

I'm sorry, will you say that again but differently? I'm with you through the extra egg and increasing the other ingredients a bit, but I don't get "or reduce all the other ingredients by some small amount." Either increase or decrease the other ingredients? Sorry, I'm just drinking my morning coffee, maybe everything will be clear later. Janet

,

I think what he's saying is upping the amount of egg would work, but assuming I'm going to use whole eggs only (not stirring in 2 eggs plus a little more) the way to get around that is by reducing all the other ingredients a bit... for instance, he's suggesting perhaps by an eighth (2 tsp vanilla becomes 1 3/4 tsp). Good advice, Alex! See, I find the key to understanding Alex is to not drink decaf. :)

- Scott

ingredients

I knew it would make better sense after more coffee.. ;o} thanks Janet

Cookie spreading is caued by some factors: such as these:

1)The amount of fat used is high( you can reduce it in order to have a better dough 'body'. 2) The sugar content is high and of coarse granulation( if you do not want to remove the brown sugar; replace part with icing sugar which will help control spreading during baking.. 50/50 blend of icing and brown sugar will do an improvement 3) Bake the cookie on ungreaed trays;so that it will not slide during baking and spread. You can also bake the cookie in paper lined trays 4) avoid the use of melted fat.. The butter must be at romm temperature . 5) Use cake flour. Normal pastry flour will encourage spreading while cake making flour will restrict it.. Alternatively I also blend cake flour and all purpose flour 30/70 to 50/50 cake flour/ APF ratio. 6) Do not overmix and overcream the mixture .I usually just blend sugar and fat at five minutes at low speed then add the eggs gradually while mixing at low spead about 2 minutes more. Good Luck! Roy