Had to choose between butter and margarine for cookies and I picked wrong

I'm making chocolate chip cookies for a bake sale this weekend and I had two sticks of salted butter sitting out or a tub of margarine. I figured margarine would make them softer and fluffier, like my grandma used to do. Nope. They spread out into flat, greasy pancakes that stuck to the pan and tasted like cheap oil. Should I just pitch the whole batch and start over with butter, or is there a way to salvage them with some extra flour?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_logan25d ago

The flat pancake thing happens with margarine every single time because it has way more water content than butter does (like 20% more water depending on the brand). That extra water turns to steam and spreads the dough out before the structure sets. You could try chilling them for an hour and then baking from cold, or folding in a couple tablespoons of flour and letting the dough rest to reabsorb some moisture. But honestly your best bet is to just start over with the butter, margarine cookies always have that greasy texture no matter what you do. Use the failed batch as ice cream topping crumbles or something, they'll still taste okay crunched up over vanilla.

sean_johnson1625d ago

Hate when that happens, feels like all that work just melts away in the oven.