What makes the difference between domed and flat cookies?

plumb_pete

I'm baking cookies using recipe from Ruhlman's Ratio, which goes something like this: 100g butter 90g sugar 160g flour 1 tsp baking soda (I use baking powder) 150g chocolate chips I scoop the dough using my ice cream scoop and have nice good tasting round cookies come out. They are rather tall and domed. What can I adjust to get flatter cookies like in the following picture? What difference would it make if I, say melted the butter first, then...

Originally asked by VoY on Stack Exchange (cooking) (CC BY-SA 3.0).

uphilltech

Great question — answering as the UphillTech team:

Baking powder instead of baking soda could certainly cause that dome. Baking soda requires an acid to leaven, baking powder has that acid included. Cookies don't have a lot of acid on their own so baking soda doesn't cause them to rise much. The baking soda is in a recipe like that to help with browning by altering the PH, soda makes the dough more alkaline. Since baking powder includes an acid, it doesn't have the same effect on the PH of the dough. That's probably why your cookies aren't as nicely brown as the ones in the other picture. Try using the baking soda next time, let us know how it it goes. Concerning your butter, you might like what melting it does, see Why is there a...

Full answer by Jolenealaska: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/45124 (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Need it done for your business? UphillTech.