Flat Cookies

I used to be notoriously bad at baking cookies. Any cookies I baked would always come out flat. I am not sure whether or not it was because of the obsessive butter beating or the excessive bowl scraping habit I have. When the recipe says, “Beat butter and sugars until light and fluffy”, I had to make sure all of the butter and sugar’s atoms are evenly distributed in the batter. I would turn on the mixer, beat butter and sugar, turn it off to scrape the bowl… over and over… until the batter looks “perfect”.

Not until I stumbled upon Jacque Torres’ chocolate chips cookies recipe that I, never again, made flat cookies. They were fool proof or flat proof, I should say. My chocolate chip cookies were always perfectly round — not too flat, not too thick and perfectly chewy. I have also made Smitten Kitchen’s thick, chewy oatmeal raisin cookies. They, too, came out perfect: not flat and chewy. Today was a different story.

I wanted something sweet. And, I wanted to bake because it was one of those cooler days in Seattle. At first, I wanted oatmeal raisin cookies, then I thought that I have made that before and I wanted something slightly different. So, I thought I would make oatmeal cookies, but with sour cherries and white chocolate. I was about to use the thick and chewy oatmeal raisin recipe I made before but with sour cherries and white chocolate chunks instead. But, I came across this recipe; and I thought, for once, let’s just bake! I’m not going to change anything…just make it the way the recipe is written.

I followed the recipe. I didn’t change a thing. I beat the butter and sugars until light and fluffy like it said, added everything accordingly, and baked them at the right temperature. But! They came out flat! I admit that I was disappointed. I thought I was cured from making flat cookies. I was wrong.

However, once I took a bite out of one of these cookies, I couldn’t care less what they look like. The taste is perfectly balanced. They are sweet and salty with fleur de sel on top. It’s also possible that I am imagining this, but the white chocolate gives out a hint of caramel — that makes you go, “Mmmm”. These cookies really make my day. They are so addictive that you can’t just have one. And, they are perfect just the way they are.