Source: Idiot’s Guide to Baking by Alexandra Zahn

Hello happy bakers!

Today we start our little series about how to figure out why your cookies didn’t turn out the way the picture showed.

Sometimes you think you followed the recipe perfectly and they still don’t turn out. Let’s look at the first three things that can happen to the cookies you tried to make last night.

1. Hard Cookies

Sometimes all you want is some ooey gooey chocolate chip cookies. You buy all the ingredients, read the recipe carefully and what you end up with is tough and hard as a rock.

There are six things that could have happened in this case.

• You added to much flour

• To much or to little sugar or butter

• Oven temperature was to low

• Cookies baked too long

• Cookies scooped different sizes

• To dark pan

2. Uneven Baking

It’s so important to scoop each cookie the exact the same way. If one scoop is bigger than another, they will require different cooking times. There is no way cookies that are different thicknesses or size, on the same baking sheet, can bake evenly.

3. Cookies dark on the bottom

You get this from super dark cookie sheets. Most recipes are designed to be baked on a light grey sheet. Different color sheets conduct heat differently. That’s why it’s important to only use a dark baking sheet if that’s what the recipe calls for. Use a heavy-gauge-sheet instead. Preferably one with a dull finish insists The Idiot’s Guide to Baking author Alexandra Zahn.

Happy Baking Friends!