@nottelling Yes, I made Ultimate Buttercrunch, aka toasted almond toffee dipped in dark chocolate rolled in toasted almonds. (In fact I just made several batches for Christmas.) I’ve never had any that was better than mine, so I would put it up against Valerie’s. 
I also made sea salt caramels dipped in dark chocolate and garnished with Maine Alder-Smoked Sea Salt.
The variant on Tollhouse cookies with more brown sugar, rather than white sugar, sounds good. I like pecans in Tollhouse cookies, and in fact probably prefer them to other nuts–but I think there is still something to be said for walnuts.
What is your experience with parchment paper for baking cookies?
A number of our family recipes appear to be lost at this point: a really great spaghetti sauce, a nice vinegar/oil/spice salad dressing, and “zoup,” which is really just beef or turkey soup with vegetables and something? If you have good recipes for any of these, I would be interested in them.
My grandmother had a sorority cookbook with a recipe for chocolate frosting that concluded with the remark “Excellent and never fails.” I have heard that she used to repeat that to herself as a tag line when she made the frosting.
I have recently found a recipe for mayonnaise that my mother obtained from a sister-in-law. It’s one of those things that is considerably less in demand these days, but I might try preparing it sometime.
Oh, I can’t leave this thread without posting my grandfather’s recipe for raisin pie. Starts with pie crust, then about 8 peeled and sliced apples, a small amount of sugar, cinnamon, butter (other spices if you want to add them). Place one raisin in the center of the pie before baking.
I always bake my choc chip cookies on parchment paper. I have a silpat that was a gift but I don’t like the way the cookies spread when using it. Parchment paper keeps them from sticking but they don’t spread.
Haha quantmech, I love the recipe for raisin pie! The first (and only for a long time) pie my D liked was pecan pie without the pecans.
My basic vinaigrette is 1 TBsp. red wine vinegar, 3 TBsp. good quality olive oil, a small amt. of dijon mustard (maybe about 1/2 tsp.? I don’t know I just squirt a little into the jar and mix with the vinegar then add the oil), a healthy pinch of salt and some fresh ground pepper. You could experiment adding other spices to the basic mix.
Rarely use parchment for cookies and definitely not for chocolate chip.
Having good quality baking sheets is key, IMO.
I have never used parchment paper for cookies. AFAIK, I don’t even think there’s any parchment paper in the kitchen. As @doschicos said, it’s not needed if you have good baking sheets. I’m not generally a picky eater, but I swear I can taste the paper on cookies baked with parchment paper. For the same reason, I don’t use paper cups when baking cupcakes.
I definitely DO use parchment for the bottom of my cake pans, though.
We tried to make our own mayonnaise once. The recipe was from The Silver Palate Cookbook, I think. It was GROSS!!! Not at all like Hellmanns. Whatever chemicals Hellmanns adds, I’m keeping with it!
Homemade-from-scratch ranch dressing (or dip), on the other hand, is to die for!!
Also, for cookies, I think the oven is even more important than the baking sheet. Convection cookies are just plain better.
Sorry for the triple posts!
I’m not sure the answer to the puffy cookies is here, but I found this little article on the chemistry of cookies and how to make them they way you like them interesting. http://blog.kingarthurflour.com/2016/03/14/cookie-chemistry-2/?utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=content&utm_medium=social
Vanilla pudding makes my cookies puffier
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One of my friends makes a puffier chocolate chip cookie that is so good and won’t give me the recipe. I’m actually angry at her about it. Light and puffy, not dense and greasy like Toll House. What do you guys think? Any guesses?
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Use less butter than the Tollhouse recipe calls for. Butter makes cookies spread.
I would try substituting baking powder for the baking soda in the toll house recipe for puffier cookies.
How do you add in vanilla pudding? (Just the powder mix, or do you make it into pudding first?) Sorry if it’s a silly question, but it’s not something I have ever heard of before this thread.
@MamaBear16 Here’s a recipe with pudding in it that is extremely popular.
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/15004/award-winning-soft-chocolate-chip-cookies/
Everyone raves about “my” chocolate chip cookies (I use the Tollhouse recipe!). My changes (for a “puffier” cookie): I use one stick of butter and a half stick of butter flavored Crisco, and I use two teaspoons of Penzey’s vanilla. Bake for 10 minutes on parchment paper on my fancy gold Williams Sonoma pans (I also use the middle size Pampered Chef scoop so all of the cookies are uniform in size).
DH gets raves about his cakes. He uses boxed mix, but adds milk instead of water, butter instead of oil, Ghirardelli chips in the chocolate cake mix to make it more decadent. Orange, lime or orange cakes get citrus oil added in the cake mix and/or frosting https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001EO5NAS/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1. If he needs vanilla, someone suggested this to him – he loves it. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B016SIPJ76/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
His frostings are to die for (literally). Heavy cream, butter, Ghiradelli cocoa, etc. Happily he takes the creations to work and they are devoured within minutes, so I don’t have to resist any leftovers. There are none!
When he makes whipped cream, he adds Grand Marnier. That never makes it home, either.
Agree about the good cookie sheets-I have big double walled ones, and combined with a convection oven, you get really good cookies every time. My husband’s chubs can attest to this 
Boyajian oils are great. I used to use Key Lime and Tangerine, as well as orange and lemon. Looks like they don’t make the first two any more.
Interesting vanilla and oils! I’ve also heard a good secret ingredient for all baked goods is “double strength” Madagascar vanilla and Valrhona chocolate. I personally like Guittard chocolate over Ghiradelli for cookies, though! Mrs. Fields chocolate chips were also surprisingly good when I used it 5 or 10 years ago (if it hasn’t changed).
Sometimes the best things are the little surprises.