There are three things that turn good cookies into great cookies. 1. Measure your dry ingredients carefully. Too much flour will make your cookies hard and dry. Begin by filling a dry measuring cup with flour, be sure not to use one made especially for measuring liquid. Take a butter knife and penetrate down to the bottom of the cup with the knife. Crisscross through the flour. This will eliminate any air bubbles. Next draw the knife along the top of the cup making the flour level and get ride of any excess flour by scraping it back into the flour container. Now you have one level cup of flour. 2. If the recipe asks you to cream the ingredients, beat them vigorously by hand or with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Do not skip this step. 3. Do not over bake. Set a timer so you won’t forget. Even a minute too long in the oven can cause your cookies to be dark, hard or brittle. Remove cookies a minute earlier than you think they need to cook as cookies continue baking on the hot cookie sheet even though they have been removed from the oven.