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So apparently when halving a baked-good recipe you can't just halve the baking soda along with everything else? Or, IDK, maybe you can, I clearly can't, because now I don't have cookies, I have greasy chocolate chip discs. They came out magazine-cover perfect last time and the half quantities are the only difference, so I'm assuming that's the problem. I was so satisfied with myself too, for becoming the kind of person who, when she feels like cookies, just whips up some cookies from scratch in twenty minutes, including the time it took to freeze half of it in little cookie-size balls in an ice cube tray. Which I will now just have to snack on raw and frozen--not that this is a huge hardship--because the ones I baked just...did not work. Same amount of butter minus the air and spatial expansion yields grossness.

IN OTHER NEWS: Yom Kippur! Yep. Services tonight wore me out more than I expected, due to all that standing while in heels, plus the frantic hours of outfit planning and collating, and the general psychological whir. I knew I wasn't going to make it to all four services tomorrow because I can't fast--it would turn me into a weeping jittery semi-hallucinatory mess, and not the kind of hallucinations and weeping that are conducive to a spiritual experience. A couple hours ago it became clear I definitely wasn't going to make it to the morning service, so right now I'm shooting for the second one that starts at 1:15 and then all the way to the end, which is about as long as I can go in uncomfortable shoes without eating. But we shall see.

I feel like I never post about fandom anymore. I am doing fan things! Just, mostly I'm consuming--mostly old things--and I don't have much to post about my vids because they're not done yet, and I'm hopping from show to show so fast there doesn't seem much point in starting conversations. I just really like having things to watch and want fic about and then hopefully read fic about. Also I write long aimless meta in my head and then don't type it out because nobody cares, but it's fun to think about.

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Re baking - I never had that problem with halving recipes? I mean, I've halved the baking soda and powder without incident.

I often have trouble when I try to make 1/3 of a recipe or 1/8 of a recipe and end up with measurements for which no spoons exist like 1/3 of 1/4 tsp of baking soda. But doing 1/2 should work - maybe just try again. Sometimes, the baking gods just take a day off.

I read somewhere that flat and greasy usually means a shortening problem.

There is a problem with making small cakes -- there is a whole book about it. Cookies should be ok. But if your butter gets over-stirred (or if you e.g. melt it before adding it) then you get flat cookies. I would try again with the ones that you froze -- that might help.

Ooooo - could I have the name of the small cakes book?

Small Batch Baking

Looks great! Thank you :)

Hmm - I bought this book for the cakes & cupcakes recipes but she has recipes for cookies too! Let me check and see if there is a special rule for cookie-recipe-halving.

Ooh - Amazon shows that she wrote a 2nd book just for chocolate desserts! Someone in comments loves the chocolate chip recipe and I found it posted in a blog!

Simply the Best Small-Batch Chocolate Chip Cookies