On 30 Oct 2003 16:54:14 -0800
(Leah Lidtorf) wrote:

Is there anyone knwoing about the math and chemistry behind
cookie-baking for Christmas?

What do scientists say?

They should not be too hard, they should not be too soft, they should
not crumble.

I think baking is really complex and maybe some scientists may had the
time to find the "perfect-cookie-formula"

Because I loose about 30% of my cookies every Christmas because nobody
can eat them and I must feed them to the birds.


There is a formula, but there are many, many variables that must be
filled in by you.

Are you living at high altitude? Some people say 'high altitude' means
6.5k feet but anything over say 3k and you may or may not need to adjust
some recipes. I live at roughly 4.9k and sometimes but not always have
to adjust.

Have you checked to see if your oven's thermostat is accurate? If you
don't have one, buy an oven thermometer. a reputable one. Ekco is fine,
cheaper than ekco probably isn't advisable.

Have you checked for hot spots in your oven?

What flour measuring conventions do you follow? Sifted? Stirred?
Weighed? None of the above?

Do you use margarine? Sure it's not really 'spread' with 60% fat
content instead of 80%?

To tell the truth the only really reliable formula is to understand
what you're doing, understand the tools you have at hand, and how to use
them, and use that understanding to interpret rather than merely follow
the recipe.

If you have specific problems with specific cookies, you can always
post the recipe and your process and details of the problem here, and
plenty of people can point out what you might change.