Someone please help me......I need to bake 75 cookies for a shower this Saturday and want to get started today with baking the cookies.

I followed the NFSC recipe to a T last night, the batter came out really flaky and crumbly looking, I figured once chilled it would settle. Well I chilled in the fridge over night and when I took out this morning it was really hard, I broke off a piece, put it in between parchment paper and rolled and it just crumbles to pieces. What did I do wrong? I only have a hand mixer, could that be it? Someone please offer suggestions or suggest a new recipe for me. I am running out of time. THANKS!!!!!!!!!

It sounds like it was too dry. I don't chill my dough before rolling out because I find it too difficult to work with, both working with chilled dough and it seems to dry it out. If you do chill it first, you need to let it warm up a bit so that you can roll it, or I think it will just crumble because it's too cold.

When I came out with dry dough, I rinsed my hands in water and then kneaded the dough with my hands, that was enough to make the dough workable.

If you can, weigh out your flour so that you have consistent amounts each time you make your dough. I have found this to be invaluable. Scooping just isn't accurate because you scoop differently every time. I used a measurement converter calculator thingy online and came up with 31.7 ounces of flour for a regular batch of NFSC. There is an occasional day where it's very humid and the dough will seem wetter than normal, and also in the winter it seems the dough is a tad drier than normal, and so I either add or omit a tablespoon of flour and that seems to do the trick. It usually doesn't take much.

Also, I've never made cookie dough with a hand mixer. I would be afraid that it would burn it up. Before I had my KA, I used a hand mixer for the wet stuff, but after I started adding the flour in I had to knead it by hand. Took longer, but I got a good workout.

I think you can salvage your dough, don't despair!

You know, kneading by hand NEVER even crossed my mind.....I should have done that. I will try washing my hands then neading the dough as it is very dry!

Thank you so much for responding.....I really didn't want to throw away all of that cookie dough. I definitely need to invest in a kitchen scale.

You could add a few tablespoons of water, but I found that my hands being wet was just the right amount of water. I know it sounds weird and I hope you understood my post okay. LOL!