Recipe(tried): The great Cookie Debate.....

Hi Kathie!
I ran across an article in a local paper,(San Francisco Chronicle), in March on this issue and it just so happened I saved it! It is dealing mainly with chocolate chip cookies...but the principle is still the same I believe. His recipe raised so much controversy that they experimented with several variations on his recipe and included the results. I think seeing these might help you see the different effects of the different ingredients...It seems though..the more butter..the less flour...the crispier the cookie.
I also know from my own baking experience that if you under cook the cookie just a bit you get a nice soft cookie...if you bake a little longer..you get a crisper one.

The Article is called "The Great Chocolate Chip Cookie Caper"...A local pastry chef created a cookie with the "taste of a Toll House but with the crispy, light character of a French tuile."
His recipe builds on a traditional chocolate chip recipe with an "upscale twist"..a lot of butter (12 ounces) and a fairly conservative amount of flour.

The trick with these cookies to insure they don't come out as a lump in the center and very thin outer edges is to pat the top of the dough once it's spooned onto the baking sheet. The chef suggests lightly pressing with your thumb. That will help spread the chunks of chocolate, oatmeal, and nuts to the edges and assure a more uniform, but still delicate cookie.

David Chesarek's Oatmeal Walnut Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups all-purpose lour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
12 ounces softened butter
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 tablespoons whole milk
1 1/4 cups instant oatmeal
14 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped walnuts

Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugars on low speed. Blend in the egg, vanilla and milk. Add the sifted dry ingredients and the oatmeal; mix on medium speed until just incorporated. Fold in the chocolate chips and walnuts.
Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 4 hours, until chilled.
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
Drop generously rounded tablespoonfuls of dough onto the prepared baking sheets, spacing the cookies about 2 inches apart.
Bake for about 15 minutes, or until lightly browned. (Watch carefully they can easily over bake)
Yields 60-70 cookies.

Variations and effects:

Adding 1/4 cup flour: This small change did nothing to alter the tasty, butter flavor but it did turn the cookie's texture to an unpleasant no-man's land between a tuile and a traditional chocolate chip.

Reducing the butter to 8 ounces: Less butter made the cookies hold together better. Nuts and chocolate, not butter, dominated the flavor. The cookies were still light and crisp.

Adding 1/2 cup flour and 1/4 teaspoon salt: The cookies were markedly different from the originals, tasting much more like tradtional Toll House. The butter flavor was much more subdued. These cookies took an additional 5 minutes to bake.

Adding 3/4 cup flour and 1/4 teaspoon salt: This cookie is very similar in flavor to the previous one, but it is much sturdier. It may contain almost too much flour, but it might be a good cookie for shipping to a college student. Also it took about 5 minutes more to bake.