Tom,

I was in the same position as you about a year ago, and post a similar
question to the newsgroup. I got good suggestions from Vox Humana
concerning the ratio of butter to Crisco.

The simple switch of substituting some of the butter with butter flavored
Crisco solves most of the problem. I have tried ratios of 25:75, 50:50 and
75:25 butter to shortening. I prefer something around 50:50 (although I
keep meaning to try 60:40). I have tried both plain cookie sheets and the
air-envelope sheets. The main difference being a slightly more crispy
bottom with the standard cookie sheet. The parchment paper is nice, in
keeping the cookie sheet clean. I have not tried baking cold dough or
frozen dough.

One other suggestion from Vox Humana was eggs. I have tried experimenting
with the amount of yolk versus egg white. However, I have not tried it
enough to make any firm conclusions. I have gone to rather small eggs, to
get rid of that "fluffy" mouth feel that you get with too much egg. I think
another big issue could be the type of oven that you use. I would be
interested in hearing from anyone who has a "forced-air" oven. It would
seem that this type of oven may give a cookie closer to a high-end
commercial cookie ( I am thinking of something like Blue Chip Cookies).
What bake temp are you using? I have tried 375F down to 350F, varying the
time. Prefer about 10 minutes at 360F in a standard electric oven (middle
rack).

My day job is that of a paint chemist (develop paint formulas for food, beer
& beverage cans). Maybe I am bringing my day time experimentation home ...

Good luck,

Alton

"Thomas R. Leith" > wrote in message
k.net...
> Thanks for the advice. I'm going to try using plain-old cookie sheets with
> parchment paper & cooking the dough from "referigerator cold". I'll post a
> post here about how it turns out...
>
> t
>
>