guess the mistake, was RE: [Sca-cooks] Chocolate chip cookies, was Everyone gone already?

[Philip & Susan Troy]

>OK, I have a chocolate chip cookie question.  Many years
>ago, I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies, using the
>recipe from the back of the package (I think it was the
>"Original Toll House" one that came on the yellow and brown
>package), and I did something wrong.  The result tasted
>like a normal chocolate chip cookie but looked sort of lacy
>-- very flat/thin, with little holes in it.  I don't think
>they had risen much if at all but they were very crispy,
>and light in a crackerish way.  I've never been able to
>recreate them, but I assume I either left something out or
>put too much or too little of something in (knowing me,
>putting something in twice is the most likely).  Anyone
>have any idea what I might have done? 'Cause I'd like to do
>it again.
>
>Dana/Ximena

Any chance you measured a 1/2 pound of flour as a cup, something
along those lines? I remember making a pound cake as a teenager,
wherein I reasoned, erroneously, that I had a pound of butter, which
worked out to two cups or so, ditto sugar and eggs, so I used two
cups of flour too, which turned out to be half as much as was needed
and, to put it mildly, changed the character of the cake.

Seriously, though (not that I am not serious about the above, so
maybe seriously isn't the right word), cookies that are lacy like
that, brandy snaps, tuilles, etc., seem to be high in fat, sugar, and
eggs, and don't seem to call for a lot of flour in proportion. If you
cooked them in a mold, which would keep them from spreading out on
the cookie sheet, they would presumably turn out to be very heavy.

You might look at a tuille or brandy snap recipe, and see what the
proportions are like. I'm sure there are others in this basic style,
but I don't know what they're called. Since a lot of cookie recipes
seem to call for fairly similar ingredients (flavorings and methods
excepted, but the usual suspects are flour, butter, eggs, and sugar),
you should be able to tailor a recipe to taste more or less like
CCC's, but be lacy like the cookies you describe.

Adamantius