My advice would be if they aren't spreading enough then there is a bit too much flour. Try cutting down 1/4 cup and do a test cookie, if it's spreading too much then add a bit more flour until you get it how you like it. Betty Crocker cookbook has this tip in their old cookbook. I think most people are trying to figure it out when it's really just as simple as too much or not enough flour that affects the spread of the cookie. Try not to over-think it so much. EDIT TO ADD: The cookies in the picture look good though...they don't look like they didn't spread enough to me. Here's a thought too, why not use a round cookie scoop to form them and flatten them out a bit with the bottom or a glass or something? This post was edited by arkansas_girl on Thu, Dec 27, 12 at 10:31

I like the world peace cookies. World peace Cookies Excerpted from Baking: From My House to Yours by Dorie Greenspan (Houghton Mifflin, 2006). Copyright 2006 by Dorie Greenspan. Makes about 36 cookies I once said I thought these cookies, the brainchild of the Parisian pastry chef Pierre Hermé, were as important a culinary breakthrough as Toll House cookies, and I've never thought better of the statement. These butter-rich, sandy-textured slice-and-bake cookies are members of the sablé family. But, unlike classic sablés, they are midnight dark there's cocoa in the dough and packed with chunks of hand-chopped bittersweet chocolate. Perhaps most memorably, they're salty. Not just a little salty, but remarkably and sensationally salty. It's the salt Pierre uses fleur de sel, a moist, off-white sea salt that surprises, delights and makes the chocolate flavors in the cookies seem preternaturally profound. When I included these in Paris Sweets, they were called Korova Cookies and they instantly won fans, among them my neighbor Richard Gold, who gave them their new name. Richard is convinced that a daily dose of Pierre's cookies is all that is needed to ensure planetary peace and happiness. * 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour * 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder * 1/2 teaspoon baking soda * 1 stick plus 3 tablespoons (11 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature * 2/3 cup (packed) light brown sugar * 1/4 cup sugar * 1/2 teaspoon fleur de sel or 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt * 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract * 5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into chips, or a generous 3/4 cup store-bought mini chocolate chips 1. Sift the flour, cocoa and baking soda together. 2. Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter on medium speed until soft and creamy. Add both sugars, the salt and vanilla extract and beat for 2 minutes more. 3. Turn off the mixer. Pour in the dry ingredients, drape a kitchen towel over the stand mixer to protect yourself and your kitchen from flying flour and pulse the mixer at low speed about 5 times, a second or two each time. Take a peek if there is still a lot of flour on the surface of the dough, pulse a couple of times more; if not, remove the towel. Continuing at low speed, mix for about 30 seconds more, just until the flour disappears into the dough for the best texture, work the dough as little as possible once the flour is added, and don't be concerned if the dough looks a little crumbly. Toss in the chocolate pieces and mix only to incorporate. 4. Turn the dough out onto a work surface, gather it together and divide it in half. Working with one half at a time, shape the dough into logs that are 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and refrigerate them for at least 3 hours. (The dough can be refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months. If you've frozen the dough, you needn't defrost it before baking just slice the logs into cookies and bake the cookies 1 minute longer.) Getting Ready to Bake: 5. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats. 6. Using a sharp thin knife, slice the logs into rounds that are 1/2 inch thick. (The rounds are likely to crack as you're cutting them don't be concerned, just squeeze the bits back onto each cookie.) Arrange the rounds on the baking sheets, leaving about 1 inch between them. 7. Bake the cookies one sheet at a time for 12 minutes they won't look done, nor will they be firm, but that's just the way they should be. Transfer the baking sheet to a cooling rack and let the cookies rest until they are only just warm, at which point you can serve them or let them reach room temperature.

Why not start with one chile, taste the dough, and then if you feel courageous, add a second one. I bought some hatch chiles recently at Whole Foods. They had a bin of mild and a bin of hot. I bought some of both, and used a twist tie on the bag of mild chiles, and no tie on the bag of hot chiles. When I started working with them, I tasted the both. Wow, they were both quite hot to me, and I can usually deal with hot. I don't know if they got the bins mixed up, or what happened, but I couldn't tell a difference. I can't imagine them in cookies, but I do occasionally like a pinch of cayenne in chocolate. Go figure. Sally

That is a good idea. I'll keep the recipe. Might try that for my DGGS's BD. I wonder why not just bake it on a pizza pan? My neighbor's son brought him a big cookie like that for Father's day. My neighbor and his DW brought some of it over to me for my BD, so it served a second purpose, and we had a little party here, for me. Sue