Cookie Question...

[htc]

What do I need to do have my cookies look like the big cookies you buy from coffee houses or restaurants (think Starbucks). Those cookies always look really nice and flat and uniform. The cookies at home always taste good but are not perfectly flat, but bumpy and not as thin, but if I'm giving them as a gift, I would love for them to look like the ones at the coffee house. I also like the consistency, even though those cookies are thin, they are still soft and kind of chewy not hard and crisp/crunchy.

Any ideas? Is it the recipe or just a technique of dropping or forming the cookies that I don't know about.

 

[PA Baker]

Some of it does have to do with the recipe (butter melts faster and spreads more than crisco or shortening) but your're right that technique matters, too. Try scopping the batter with an ice cream scoop to ensure equal portions. Then, with slightly damp finger tips, flatten the balls of dough. When they bake, they should then stay relatively uniform in terms of roundness and height.

A recipe that calls for butter and crisco will help them to not flatten out and spread too much.

 

[abjcooking]

This is a chocolate chip recipe that my mom has perfected. Because she has replaced some of the butter for butter flavored crisco they all stay the same size. She scoops them out with and ice cream scoop and leaves them in a ball, but you could try to flatten them, they should keep their shape. Just make sure to chill the cookie sheet and the dough.

5 cups all-purpose flour
2 t. baking soda
2 t. salt
2 sticks butter (1cup)-I use regular Land O' Lakes
1 cup butter flavor crisco
3/4 cup plus 3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup plus 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 t. vanilla extract
4 large eggs
4 cups chocolate chips
2 cups nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 375.

Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in small bowl. In another bowl beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla until creamy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in chocolate chips. Chill dough and cookie sheet. Drop by ice cream scoop onto cookie sheet. Bake for 13 minutes.