Adventures In Cookie Making

Chocolate chip cookies have always been my favorite.


I could founder myself on them if I weren't careful. I'd noticed a few years ago, though, that eating them always made me rather sick. As soon as I was diagnosed with my egg allergy, I found out why. It was with great sadness that I stopped making them. I'd tried using an egg replacer made up primarily of tapioca flour and potato starch. They tasted fine, but just didn't have the consistency that I liked. A couple of weeks ago, Dawn suggested using flax seed as an egg replacer. I couldn't wait to try it. I bought some chocolate chips, got out my best chocolate chip cookies ever recipe and got to work.

I very quickly ran into a snag when I discovered that I did not have enough butter. I could have kicked myself, because when I was in the store Friday, I started to pick up a pound of butter, but said, "Naah, I don't need butter."

No big deal, I would just substitute margarine. I got out my margarine tub and dumped the requisite amount into the bowl. I added the rest of the ingredients and mixed it all together. But something was wrong. My dough was not dough. It had more of the consistency of muffin batter. It was then that I remembered.

My margarine was light.

Now, margarine is made up of solidified vegetable oil and there is only one way to make it light. Add water. Since water is added to the margarine, using it in baking makes your dough or batter thinner than it should be, therefore you should use only half of what the recipe calls for. It's been so long since I've used anything but real butter in my baking that I'd forgotten this.

To compensate for my overly thin dough, I added more flour. The thing about this is that the extra flour makes the dough not spread out during baking as it normally would. So I ended up with fat cookies.

The good news is, they taste just fine.


I've already foundered myself on them.

I'm going to go lay down and groan now.
.