Dave Bell > wrote in message rea.net>...
> 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

Cookies are baked products that had minimal moisture content among the
other baked goods. It is more related to the pie crust which has
little moisture as well.
The principle in this products is that you just need just sufficient
water not much to form a dough or much more like a batter but just
simply a paste.

But a pastry or a cookie with similar texture like shortbread. You
still can find under the microscope discrete particles of flour
granules in combination with some swollen gluten aggregated with fat
particles and sugar crystals.
It is a fact that sugar tends to bind moisture as well due to
hygrosocopicity but the nature of such interactions will favor the
flour protein to bind the limited water first, and due to the finer
particles size if compared to the normal fine granulated sugar;
while the flour wedge protein is finer by two or more significant
figures.But mixing can also influence the results if you cream the fat
and sugar and add it to the flour blend you will likely get the same
lacy cookie than if you mix the ingredients simply. Just be sure that
the eggs and fat are well blended to allow some emulsification.
Therefore the mixture is loose if compared to the dough and the
batter. To attain some degree of cohesiveness with out becoming too
wet more fat is needed but there is a limit. As too much fat will
prevent the minimal flour protein in soft / pastry/ cookie flour to
hydrate properly.
The same also with sugar. Fat ( in form of butter or margarine)will
tend to coat the sugar particles distributing whatever moisture in it
on the sugar surface. Therefore inspite of the bigger particles size
if compared to the flour wedge protein its quantity will inhibit the
flour from absorbing the minimal moisture. Then there will be much
less water left for the flour.
This will be aggravated if there is a ballast component that does not
have a gluten in it like oatmeal. It can also adsorb the moisture on
the jagged surface of the oatmeal preventing it to be absorbed by the
flour.
Hence if you mix a blend of non gluten ingredients such as oatmeal
with flour its best to use higher protein flour so that there is more
chance that the increased gluten content that the mixture will surely
result in good moisture binding and will minimize ‘pan flow or
laciness'
Being a loose mixture if the amount of fats is high as well as the
sugar, during the baking the fat having the lower melting point will
tend to flow like a river dragging the pebbles of ‘sugar ‘along
without an obstruction( supposing the is no water in the recipe).
Hence the flour particles will be carried down also resulting in lacy
appearance.
If the cookie formulator always think in narrow way ( or is so
inexperienced)that a cookie should be like a short bread and adapt
that principle to cookies he will never get anywhere with his recipes.
He should have to create the obstruction by means of the flour
protein which serves like gnarled roots of trees and other vegetation
along the river banks. Hence the need for moisture in the form of milk
/ egg or water.
If you ask then how about short bread it has no water in it. But it
has little sugar in there as well as compared to the normal cookie
recipe.The minimal amount of moisture in the butter is partially
responsible for some binding.
A short bread is firmer and than a cookie dough and the fat is
slightly less as well as much less sugar quantity in it.
A short bread can be pressed and cut with little difference in
appearance when baked if compared to a normal cookie.
You are right the presence of lots of sugar and butter and minimal
moisture plus the coarseness of the oatmeal will impede the formation
of the desirable cookie structure.hence your cookie will flow out and
like lace cookies.
Therefore you need drastic measures, that is the use of egg which
contains moisture but most important the albumen portion has a good
binding ability and it will interacts with the flour protein making a
good mesh or structure.for that type of cookie.The lecithin in the egg
will also interact forming a ternary phase fat /moisture/protein
strengthening the structure.
You are on the right track with your experiments, try to obtain a
balance between cohesiveness( just enough moisture binding) and
flowability( due to enough fat and sugar but not much) and your cookie
will come out all right.
Setting aside other factors such as baking and mixing.
The principle of cookie flow is also affected by the flour protein,
cookies made with stronger flour ( all purpose instead of pastry) will
have better symmetry specially if you use it non gluten ingredients
like oatmeal. If you use 100 percent flour then its okay to use pastry
as the all purpose flour tends to distort the cookie symmetry and
affect the eating quality as well.
Roy