On Fri, 19 Nov 2004, pheasant wrote:

> No liquids are needed. Basic cookie ingredients are butter/shortening,
> flour, salt, and sugar.

Well, I was thinking "egg", not water...

> Every recipe varies, even pie crusts use varying ingredients, (my wife's has
> vinegar and eggs) but your recipe looks sound as is.

Then, why do they melt and turn to lace? There's precious little water in
butter, and less in shortening. If not making a shortbread (with a lot
more flour relative to the butter), what is there to bind it?

As suggested, I will try again, with less butter/more flour, but this was
really just a single example of several recipes that I've had the same
problem with. I *do* get a good shortbread cookie from the spelt flour.
They spread only a small amount in the heat. Perhaps I should go back to
that as a basis, and morph it to the oatmeal cookie...

Thanks,

Dave