Why are they all spotted? I used clear vanilla and the no fail sugar cookie recipe. I've made them before and they weren't spotted. Any ideas what caused this?

Never saw that happen. Did you roll them out on parchment, or flour. I was thinking maybe the spots are scorched flour?

do they taste good??

It almost looks like the sugar isn't dissolved and just carmalized in the oven. But thats really just a guess. IF they taste good ice them and it won't be noticable.

Yeah, I rolled them out on parchment and didn't use any flour.

peg18 I bet it has something to do with the fact that I rushed the butter. I didn't really let it get totally room temp. I never thought it would create spots!! Weird!

hmmmm...never seen that before, but one thing I can tell is that your oven is too hot. See how the edges are a bit browned and the centers are still pale?

Lower the oven temp by 25 degrees next time and add a few extra minutes onto the baking time. They will bake evenly and have just a touch of golden brown at the edges instead.

(This has nothing to do with the spotting you had occur...I just wanted to offer a bit of extra advice! )

I have a confession......I don't let my butter get room temp when I make no fail..... mine aren't spotted........so i don't think its the butter..........


BUT.......



I will say this....mine are ALWAYS too brown on the edges....so I apreciated your tip antonia!!! You're my idol anyway...you say "The best cookies come from you jumping off a bridge first then eating the egg shells from the eggs you use and tada..the perfect cookie"....I would eat 4 eggs just to be sure!!!

Thanks Antonia. I actually DID lower the temp to 330. I'll try even more next time. Maybe my oven isn't that great even though it's new.

I wish I knew what caused the spotting since twinsline7 shot my butter theory all to heck! LOL!

Perhaps your refridgerater is much colder, or much warmer than hers? I don't know but it's a thought. That might matter with the butter.

I'd also use real vanilla. The best you can get.

A couple of things that I can see/think of. First, they were baked too long or too hot. Since you say you have already turned the temp down in your oven--I'm going with too long. They should be barely brown on the edges and then removed from the oven. Cookies actually finish "baking" on the sheets--this is part of the reason why you need to let them sit on the baking sheet for a minute or two before you remove them to the cooling racks.

If you break one open--is it spotted throughout? I'm guess that it will not be.

What looks to me that could have happened, is you may have actually overbeat your dough and incorporated a bunch of air into the dough. Are the spots actually air bubbles? If so, this would explain them.

These are the only things I can think of. HTH and good luck! Do they taste ok?

Lisa

I wonder if your cookies were on the upper rack too close to the heating element? Or maybe your oven's upper element is working - but the bottom one is not as warm.

sometimes on white cakes - that will happen to mine if the layer is on the upper rack.

Or, maybe they caught some sort of chicken pox, and you will have to eat them all - you know, to keep from exposing your customers. Gee, I hate it when that happens - I think I'll go cook some on the upper rack right now....

I made a batch of biscuits this morning with half white flour, half whole wheat, and they looked just like this with the spots. Is it possible that you accidentally used some whole wheat flour?

Well, I creamed them for a while but like I said, the butter was kind of cold still so maybe it didn't blend as much as it should have.

I think I figured out why they were funky. I'm very embarrassed to admit this but I didn't use enough butter! I was halving the recipe and only used 2 sticks of butter istead of 4! I wondered why they were so easy to roll out. LOL! They tasted fine they were just crunchy.

I don't forget I'm just impatient