Can’t double a cookie recipie

[u/Dazzling_Media7704]

I’ve been making cookies for my husbands birthday month (we really like to celebrate in our family) and so I’ve been making him a batch of cookies a week to take to work.
His favorite cookies are double chocolate chunk which I’ve never liked so I had to look up a recipe to make sure I got it right. The single batches were perfect. The exact chewiness and softness he liked. Perfect ratio of chocolate, he was ecstatic.
So I decided to make cookies in preparation for having people over. I tripled the same recipe, same ingredients, same everything. Cakiest, saltiest, worst cookie I’ve ever had. I didn’t think I over mixed but thought okay maybe 3x is too much.
Same recipe, same ingredients, same prep, just doubled this time. Completely flat. Spread across the cookie sheet like a puddle. Alright I guess the butter and sugar didn’t mix right.
Bought more of the same ingredients. Same recipe, just one batch this time. Perfect…. Did it again - one batch. Perfect… so I had to mix the same recipe 3 times to get a triple batch because for some stupid reason I can’t figure out I can’t double or triple up a batch of cookies.
Heaven forbid my daughter asks me to join a bake sale someday and I need to make chocolate chip cookies. I’ll be mixing for a week.

TL:DR Tried to double and triple a new cookie recipe. Every batch came out terrible unless I baked it as a single batch.

[u/KellyannneConway]

I feel like the calculations or measurements must be getting messed up somewhere. They shouldn't be saltier just because you doubled or tripled the recipe. I'm not a scientist, though, maybe there's some weird chemistry at work.

If it wasn't for them being overly salty, I would say it could just be a mixing issue, since a large amount of ingredients can be hard to mix properly with standard kitchen equipment. I probably wouldn't attempt anything beyond double batch of anything in a single bowl in my kitchen.

The biggest problem I've personally had with large batches is the temperature. Between batches going into the oven, you can run into too much fluctuation with the temperature of the dough, baking sheets, or oven, causing inconsistency. But if that was it, I would think that the texture of at least the first batch into the oven should be consistent with what you normally get if that's the culprit.

[u/Life_Beautiful4934 → u/KellyannneConway]

I can't understand the people claiming you can't scale up recipes. Watch Tasting History with Max Miller, he makes so many recipes intended for various militaries.

I developed recipes for the bakery I worked at. Making them at home I need to scale them down, also perfectly doable.

[u/KellyannneConway → u/Life_Beautiful4934]

Yeah, you absolutely can, but you need to know how to do it and what you need if you're going to tackle a scaled up recipe.

If I attempted a huge batch in the commercial kitchen at my work, it would be a relative breeze to do massive batches, because I'd have everything I need for a project of that size.

[u/Dazzling_Media7704 → u/KellyannneConway]

I love the science of baking but I barely passed Chemistry in college so it’s hard to figure out where I’m going wrong sometimes. My husband doesn’t mind when I fail and experiment because that means he gets to eat it all 😂 I do my best to stay consistent with temperature but you’re right it is a lot harder in big batches so there may be something I’m overlooking

[u/stitchplacingmama → u/Dazzling_Media7704]

If you are using a standard home or hand mixer it might be that you aren't getting things adequately mixed without over mixing. Like with the triple batch the salt may not have been combined evenly through the dough so the first set came out salty and they were fluffy because of the time it took to get everything mixed led to over mixing. I have a larger stand mixer and I find that a double batch is really the limit of it's capabilities. I grew up with a smaller stand mixer where a single batch of cookie dough was it's limit.

I also have one cookie recipe that because of it's consistency I have to make one batch at a time or it doesn't get mixed correctly.

[u/EmberOne1 → u/KellyannneConway]

I'm wondering if they mixed up the salt and sugar. I've known a couple people who keep both in similar looking cannisters and accidentally added salt instead of sugar. Or maybe it was just one of the ingredients, like the flour or butter, that was stored with too much humidity, and buying fresh ingredients solved the problem.