Im having all kinds of trouble today. I made a cookie cake last week (my first it was a trial run) and it turned out perfect. I just used my regular cookie recipe and put it on a pizza pan and baked it for 25mins.

Today I did the exact same thing and instead of rising a little it spread out flat and fell over the edges of the pan. I dont know what happened. I measured everything exactly the same as before, I used the same ingredients (same packages), baked it the same amount of time on the same pan. Why would it not bake the same way?

Now Im afraid the middle of the cookie isnt fully cooked and the outside was burning. I trimmed the outside off. If the middle is a bit undercooked will that just make it chewy or is it going to be not good to eat?

(im so sad because my buttercream isnt working well either, its turning grainy. And this is for my son's bday party at school tomorrow)

Could your butter/shortening have been warmer the second time? If the dough went into the oven softer/warmer, it might have spread more before starting to set. This is a guess, though.

Not knowing how undercooked the middle was, I don't know what to suggest. (Depending on how you are decorating it, maybe you could cut out a little core from the middle to check?

Hope everything works out.

thanks for your response. I think i figured out what was different this time. Last time I baked i on parchment paper on the pizza pan this time for some reason i messed up and put aluminum foil under it instead. I have no idea why i did that but im guessing that is why it went flat because nothing else was different

thanks for the suggestion i will test the core

Yup -that was what did it. Aluminum foil would have caused a difference in heat distribution and hosed your cookie. I like to bake cookies cakes in reg. cake pans(gives a clean uniform edge). Good luck and hang tough. Your kids is lucky to have a mom like you.

The core was not cooked like it should have been but it wasnt totally raw and it tasted ok. I didnt have time to make another one so we just used this one. The kids all thought it was really good so its alright.

I still cant believe I put foil under it. ugh

That happened to me the first time i ever made a large cookie. I used a pizza pan and the cookie just spread over all the edges onto my oven floor. What a mess. I then started baking the cookie cakes in cake pans or disposable cake pans with edges.