Baking – Why are the cookies falling apart

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I tried making this recipe: Nutella Cookie Crisps.

Since I am not in the USA, I had to convert cups to grams. It ended up being about 300g Nutella, 200g soft brown sugar, and the 6 tablespoons of flour came out to 62g. I used 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda, 1 large egg and about 120g of chocolate chips, as the recipe indicates.

The recipe said that the dough would be sticky and wet, because of the Nutella, but mine wasn't. It was dry, difficult to mix the chocolate chips into it because they wouldn't "stick" in and kept falling apart. I initially used 280g Nutella, but seeing this consistency problem I added another 20g. This seemed to make it worse, and make the dough even more crumbly.

When baked for 10 minutes at 180C, after cooling and setting, the cookies taste overwhelmingly of raw brown sugar and just fall apart. I was aiming for the cookies to be crisp on the outside, with a chewy, toffee-like consistency in the middle. They're slightly crisp outside, but the inside is soft and crumbly and just tastes of sugar. I know that 200g of brown sugar certainly isn't more than 1 cup, so I have no idea what's gone wrong.

I tried baking one of the cookies for a further 5 minutes, but it hasn't made any difference. I still have half the dough in the fridge, so if someone could help me salvage it, I'd be very grateful!

Best Answer

I think your main issue was unit conversion, particularly for the flour (you had too much) and the chocolate chips (too little).

1 cup Nutella                           300 grams[1]
1 cup brown sugar                       200 grams 
1 tsp baking soda                       
1 large egg
6 tablespoons flour                     45 grams flour 
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips         Appx 150-175 grams depending on reference site

[1] How much does a cup of Nutella weigh?

I base the flour calculation on (6 / 16 tablespoons / cup) * 4.25 oz canonical cup for US recipes * 28.3 grams / ounce. The cup weight for flour can vary but I find 4.25 oz is a good value for recipes that don't otherwise specify.

Given that you have too much flour, probably insufficiently hydrated (the egg yolk and nutella are the only sources of water in the recipe, and I don't know how much water is in nutella), you can try adding a little more egg yolk or water to see if it helps, but your best bet would be to start a fresh batch.

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