On Wed, 25 Jan 2006 20:40:52 -0800
"Richard Crowley" > wrote:

> I found this a couple months ago while researching the
> crispy vs. soft issue...
> http://allrecipes.com/advice/coll/al...cles/177P1.asp


Some of that is at odds with popular recipes and personal experience.

For example, granted that Alton Brown is an admittedly novice baker at
best, his three chocolate chip cookie recipes are often posted and many
people have used them.

The above article states that bread flour results in crispier cookies,
while the 'chewey' recipe uses bread flour.

It also states, "Butter melts at a much lower temperature than the other
solid fats, so cookies made with it will tend to spread out. And oil, since
it already is a liquid at room temperature, produces cookies that keep
their shape."

In my personal experience, this isn't true.

My own experimentation has been with peanut butter cookies. In those,
the peanut butter necessarily amounts for a large portion of the fat. I
find that the more 'natural' peanut butter - where the primary fat is
peanut oil - produces cookies that are hard and have an oily texture, where
'stabilized' peanut butters in which much of the peanut oil has been
replaced with shortening produces soft cookies with a dry texture.

And, fwiw, the peanut oil version bakes up a little bit flatter.

Aside from that . . . . lets put it this way - I'm a single guy with a
career in a neighborhood full of married college students with very young
children.

Since i have next to nothing in common with most of my neighbors, who in
any case are usually only around for 8 months or so, and i am loathe to
spend time around small children with whom i am not related, I end up being
somewhat reclusive.

Many of these people are, however, very friendly. The ones who manage
not to block my parking space with a truck when they move in receive gifts
of baked goods from me.

Every now and then, a friendly neighbor will give me a plate of cookies.

They are always awful. Stiff but ductile. Oily, leaving a stain on the
paper plate. You know these cookies. You have eaten these yourself and
fought to keep smiling while thinking of a way to decline 2nd helpings.

Their hearts are in the right place but they can't bake worth a damn. I
haven't been able to think of a way to politely suggest that there is a
road to enlightenment that they should seek.

I don't know for sure, but i strongly suspect that these cookies are
made with 62% fat "spread" stick products. Because this is what a single
income family of 3 with at least one in college can afford.