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Comment by goodcanadian | Hacker News Reader

Indeed, my mother (unsurprisingly) uses exactly the same recipe as my grandmother did for chocolate chip cookies (I suspect it also came from the side of a chocolate chip bag). The cookies turned out very differently, however, depending on who made them.

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Oooh - we have this. Where some of my family members refuse to include the salt, or prefer butter that melts like crazy, and they get harder, flatter versions of the cookies. My aunt (who married a chemist) pointed out how the salt actually means something, and I started including it again, and the cookies got so much better (in my opinion.)

Butter handling is key in my own chocolate chip cookies, I've found. Let it soften too much, or overbeat the batter, and you'll end up with Frisbees. Ideally you want to cream the butter and sugars until just combined; they'll get more thoroughly mixed as you add flour and other ingredients.

Salt is generally good for you, and enhances sweetness in baked goods. There is no good reason to omit it.

My mom has a box of cards with recipes on them. These are preprinted cards to handwrite on, but they have blanks for the name of the recipe, who you got it from, and how many it serves. One of them is the Toll House chocolate chip cookie recipe, but it says it's from my aunt.

(My aunt is not known for her cooking.)

Even the way you stir has an effect on the result in confectionery...

Making emulsions consistently is hard process science. Sometimes even dispersion is not what you want. Picking right cake form or cookie size is critical too as it changes water evaporation.

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