Ah, the joys of baking.  I have been trying out new cookie recipes lately.  Some recipes are diamonds...and some are well, like sand and styrofoam. 

Recipe #1:  Whipped Shortbread

  Oh what a pretty picture these make in the cookbook.  The caption under the recipe title says that they melt in your mouth.  The truth is that they disintegrate in your mouth like a fine powdered sand...sand that is really rather bland.  No plans to make this recipe again any time soon.

Recipe #2 Meringues

I remember my mother-in-law eating these cookies...in fact now that I think about it she's the only one I've ever known who ate them.  THERE IS A REASON FOR THIS.  I piped them out in pretty little shapes and they turned out picture perfect....they taste good...smell wonderful....but I can't get past the fact that they sound like styrofoam when you eat them.  I put them in a ziploc bag and they sound exactly like those silk covered Christmas balls that were so popular in the eighties.  Crap...another recipe I won't be making again.

It's back to the recipe books for me....anyone have suggestions for cookies that have a palatable texture (and of course taste) that I can try next?

The recipe for cookies is:

• 1 part sugar, to
• 2 parts fat (butter, shortening, cooking oil, whatever), to
• 3 parts flour.

Flavor to taste, and bake. Seriously. And if you'd like to learn more simple recipes like this, I recommend "Ratio", by Michael Ruhlman.

But if you prefer to have more detailed recipes, I suggest the Betty Crocker Cooky Book. (No, I didn't misspell that, that's the title.) It's an old book from the 60's, all cookie recipes. Very popular, very treasured, it was very expensive as a used book but it's recently been put back into print. I must have baked every one of those darned recipes as a kid, and they're all good.