Not every new thing one tries is successful. Unfortunately, I’ve had a major chocolate chip cookie baking fail, I guess we could say from overenthusiasm. However, I’ve learned a few things.

Note: here is the recipe I used, though it is not the recipe’s fault in any way but mine completely: https://joyfoodsunshine.com/the-most-amazing-chocolate-chip-cookies/.

Mistakes were made.

1. That same day, I’d bought my very first hand-blender, to assist with mixing the dough. Using the blender for the first time to cream the sugar, softened butter, and eggs, I was really enjoying myself. I went beyond “until combined” to “beat the heck out of.” Will not do that again.
2. Measuring the flour, instead of doing as I’ve done every other time in my life by pouring the flour into the measuring cup on the counter, I scooped the flour directly from the bag, and leveled it off by kinda compacting it against the inside of the bag — why why why did I do this. I’m pretty sure this resulted in my using more than the recipe’s three cups of flour.
3. The recipe literally said, in bold, “Use LOTS of chocolate chips.” I did not measure so I actually used too many. And then made things worse by adding far too many walnut pieces.
4. I used a new scoop which was actually sized for ice cream and too large for cookies. Thus the “scoops” I made needed to be divided by hand, probably resulting in over-rolling of the balls.

The result of #1 and #2 was that my cookie balls did not flatten, and #3 meant that the dough mixture hardly held together with all the inclusions, sigh, so was difficult to form into balls anyway, which was not helped by #4. The resulting cookies were tough on the outside and not really done on the inside. I may have given myself a tummy ache testing if any of them were salvageable.

Next time I plan to:

• Calm the heck down with the electric-beating, and probably mix by hand as I’ve always done.
• Measure the flour properly. A friend recommends measuring ingredients by weight for best results, adding them directly to one bowl and resetting the scale’s tare feature. I have a digital scale (that I use for postage, hah). I can do that!
• Measure the chocolate chips. Perhaps not add walnuts unless allowed in the recipe.
• Maybe purchase a cookie scoop? Or drop with spoons as I’ve always done, not forming into balls.
• Maybe purchase an oven thermometer for extra control? Although (I think) I baked them to the proper time and golden brownness, apparently a 25° difference in temperature makes a difference, so it would be good to know (anyway) if my oven actually heats to the temperature I expect.
• Use a friend’s tried and true recipe, measuring by weight: https://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/185/Nestle-Toll-House-Chocolate-Chip-Cookies. I quite admire the logical summary at the bottom.

Next time will be better.