"Ham Sulu" > wrote in message
...
>I made the Cooks Illustrated oatmeal raisin cookie recipe or the one from
>the great Simply Recipes site (looks the same to me).
>
> http://www.elise.com/recipes/archive...in_cookies.php
>
> They came out dry and didn't spread. I had some random thoughts but
> wonder if anyone has any ideas since I'm really not familiar with oatmeal
> raisin cookies.
>
> I used "extra thick" organic oats and not ye olde Quaker Oats. It was
> still 3 cups, but maybe they sucked up more moisture or something.
>
> I had 2 baking sheets and definitely the bottom sheet spread more than the
> bottom. I turned on the convection oven after the first baking and it
> seemed to make the cookies spread a little better. I'm thinking of only
> doing one layer next time, but 2 might work with the convection.
>
> Any other factors I should look out for? This recipe seems to produce
> good results for others, so I'm not willing to give up on it yet and
> assume it's something I'm doing like using the wrong oats.

This recipe used to be a bugger for me, too, until I changed a couple things
that were being done incorrectly:

First, Cook's Illustrated recipes are fairly exhaustive and exacting, except
when they specify a portion of cookie dough (or bread dough for rolls,
meatball mixture, etc.) to be a certain diameter, their inches are either
smaller or larger. Using their two-inch measure I would get many more
cookies than the 18 I was supposed to end up with. The smaller cookies
would overback in half the specified time, and I'd have dozens of excellent
dog biscuits for Pavlov.

So now what I do is weigh the entire mass of finished dough in grams and
divide that number by 18. With that final number I then portion out the
doughballs by weight. After the first few I get a feel for how large CI
actually meant for their doughballs to be before baking. Mark down some
notes in your CI book for next time weight and size.

Second, these cookies have to come out of the oven before they look like
they're done. They have to look raw in the top center of the cookie and just
beginning to brown around the edges. They won't look like they'll ever firm
up after cooling, but they will. During the final minute of baking this
cookie gives up a lot of moisture, and overbaking will occur if you're not
diligent. Ten or twenty seconds beyond and they will be dry and hard.

There's not enough milk in the house to choke one of these huge cookies down
your throat if the batch turns out dry and hard. Milk isn't necessary when
enjoying one properly soft and chewy, but still recommended (if you're not
LI).

Best of luck.