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Hi Melissa, I tried these just as written and ended up with platters instead of the neatly domed cookies that you show. I held the dough in the fridge overnight, put the dough balls in the freezer off and on for about an hour, and at 15 minutes the edges, which all ran together, were still not solid. For the second sheet, I did all of the above plus upping the baking temp to 400. That batch is marginally better but still quite flat.
Any suggestions?
That sound frustrating. I hope they were at least edible.
After chilling the dough, was it dry-stiff enough to roll into balls? Maybe just a little residue getting left behind on your palms.
I did some reading, and there are a lot of different reasons cookies can spread. It sounds like you chilled the dough plenty. The link below also talks about creaming of the butter and sugar just so. I’ve never timed this step or worried about it much, but apparently it can be a “just so” sort of thing.
Hi Melissa, mine came out flat too, I don’t have a mixer, I mixed by hand and feel it’s not a butter issue and wonder if it has to do with the sugar, what kind of sugar did you use? When I mixed the butter and the sugar, I didn’t get the texture describe wondered if it was a volume/type of sugar vs butter issue?
Thanks,
Joe
Eek! I’m going to make them again and I’ll mix by hand and report back.
I made them twice, granulated sugar/white table sugar, scale for flour and starter, volume for the other stuff.
Mine spread like crazy too. Scraped them ⅓ baked into a bowl (a sheet pan full of cookie goop) and added at least another cup and a half of flour. Refrigerated them again, and baked them again, and they seem fine. Proportions seem way off.
@Stonewall_Bakehouse @jpallen @sheryliott
I’m going out to buy some lemons right now and get started on a batch. Quick question as I try and do diagnostics, was your sourdough discard very old i.e. more than a week?
No, it was less than a week old. And to answer a couple of your earlier questions (a little late), yes, they tasted good; and no, the dough was not particularly dry. I think I may have overworked the butter-sugar mix. You did suggest “cutting” the butter in as I recall. My mix was quite uniform and soft. I’m certainly interested in trying again. The taste was really fresh and nice, although with the two sugars, a bit too sweet for me.
My sourdough was about a week old, however, I let it set out for a while and it was fairly bubbly. Even though the cookies were flat, they are very yummy, I love lemon! The cookies, I felt, were to sweet… The recipe says one and three-quarter cup of sugar, but does not give a weight. (I am curious about this ) The butter was soft at room temperature. The dough after refrigeration was very soft, and was sticky as I tried to roll them into balls. Thank you for giving it another try. I’d love to try the bake these again!
Notes from this latest batch – I hope these details and the video/photos are helpful.
I don’t think a pastry blender is the right tool if creaming the butter and sugar by hand. I’ll delete
that suggestion now that I’ve done it by hand myself! You really need to work sugar into every bit of butter. I used two wooden spoons, but from my reading, a spatula, followed by a fork is a more typical strategy.
Make sure the cookie batter is chilled all the way through, at least 1 hour. And if you are using two half sheets, set up one sheet with cookies to bake, then put the batter back into the refrigerator or even freezer. Then set up the next sheet after the oven is free again. Or if you have refrigerator space, the second sheet could rest in there all ready to bake.
I only used 300g flour, but I’ll edit the recipe to be 300-330g so people feel more comfortable adding more flour if they want. (I also like the lemon juice to range up to 80g and I’ll add that to complicate things😁)
Here is a comparison of only 30 minutes chilling (the flatter cookies on the left) versus 1 hour (the taller ones on the right). The colder ones were also less messy to roll.
Here’s the batter texture at various stages, including video of the batter pre-chilling.
Additional notes: this batch was made with all purpose flour because I’m out of spelt. It has a wetter feel than when I use spelt, but manageable if cold. I also switched the ground turmeric for ground ginger, for flavor fun.
3/4 cup of sugar is 150g
I have a few cookies’ worth of batter sitting in my refrigerator overnight and I’ll bake them tomorrow to check on whether fermentation changes things.
Overnight refrigeration made the cookies flatter, which could be related to fermentation changing the batter and/or to the chemical leaveners losing their oomph.
Have you tried doing these with white spelt?
I haven’t, and I would love to do a hydration test comparing white spelt and all purpose flour. I really don’t know off the top of my head which would be thirstier.
Melissa, I’m confused about the sugar. Your recipe says 1 3/4 cups sugar which is 350g not 150g.
Thank you!! You found my error. I can’t believe how many times I looked at that recipe in the past day and saw 3/4 cup despite that not being what was written in front of my eyes. That also explains why the cookies were too sweet for the other people who made them.
@Stonewall_Bakehouse @jpallen @sheryliott I’m so sorry! The error is how much sugar I wrote in the recipe. Originally, I had planned to write “1 cup, divided” but that always confuses me, so I switched to 3/4 cup in the main ingredient list and 1/4 cup in the toppings list – only I didn’t actually delete the “1” so it became 1 3/4 cups 
Mystery solved. Again I am so sorry!
Might also explain why so many bakers got flat cookies.
I wonder what using powdered sugar would do. Change the texture of the cookie? Make it lighter? And how much powdered sugar to use instead of 3/4 granulated sugar?
@kent Yep 
for sure it caused the flatness. Sugar turns to liquid at higher temps.
@Abe That’s an interesting question. Powdered /confectioners sugar has corn starch… It also doesn’t cut up the butter the same way. Here’s some info on using one vs the other. Apparently you’d use less volume of powdered sugar for the same sweetness of granulated.
I did a second batch today with the changes and the results were “just like the pictures”. Thanks to all for tracking down the problem. I used 330g of freshly milled sprouted spelt berries and the full 80g of lemon juice with over an hour of chilling and some brief freezer time after shaping while waiting for the oven to heat.
I don’t understand the technique of the two spoons and the spatula with the fork, and the video doesn’t help.
The leavening powders have reacted with the acidic sourdough and lemon juice and lost all their strength.
It would make them more crumbly, with a finer texture.
For some cookies, shortbreads and similar doughs I use only powdered sugar.
I updated the recipe by-hand creaming instructions to have more detail, and made the chill time for the batter 1-3 hours. (The next-day cookies weren’t flat but they were not the intended texture either.)
It’s so cold in my kitchen right now, that “room temp” butter is quite stiff. I rubbed the butter chunks between the two wooden spoons to flatten them. This would have worked with one wooden spoon/stiff spatula and the side of the bowl too. Here is a video of that, with quite soft butter:
This article talks about using the fork to whip air into the mixture after the butter and sugar are fully combined, as if you were beating eggs:
