Why are my cookies falling apart?
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 there is a better explanation than the flour conversion. First, 4.25oz is on the low side as a conversion factor, Cookwise uses a factor of somewhere over 5oz. Second, we are talking about a recipe which started out as "flourless" and the author put in just enough flour to keep them from turning into puddles. I doubt that a bit more flour will ruin them, seeing that the initial amount was so low.
Since you mention that you are from Europe, I think you have used the wrong sugar. The brown colored sugar sold in Europe is frequently just "raw sugar" or similar, which is the same as white sugar, but with somewhat darker color. It is completely dry, and melts a bit worse than white sugar. Both the falling apart and the "sugar taste" sound like you ended up crunching on this kind of crystals.
When Americans bake with "brown sugar", they use gooey stuff where there are still lots of melasses clinging to the crystals. This stuff is wet, and sticks together. You can sometimes get it from specialty stores which import foreign products (UK shops will have it too). In many recipes, it is also an option to "make your own" by using a mix of white sugar and some syrup - melasses if you can get them, some other liquid "sugar" if you can't (beet syrup, agave syrup, golden syrup, etc.) This works well in other doughs where the sugar is added for taste. I am a bit more skeptical here, where it's not just the ratio of moisture that matters, but the wet sugar is a major structural component. Maybe you can mix it and leave it for a day or two before baking.
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Answer 2
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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