a lesson in baking

In my last few days at my old house in Altadena, I got on a cookie baking spree....from scratch. One night when Mikey was helping me mix in the ingredients and we were just imagining what would happen if...
what would happen if we left out baking soda?
how would they taste if we left out the salt?
what would happen if we left out the flour?
..doubled the vanilla?

We thought this would be something we could ask a grandmother or even our mothers, as it was clearly information I was going to have to provide in years to come to questioning children and grandchildren.
As it came time to eat the dough and bake some of it as well everything looked and tasted as expected. I thought we were good to go.

Little did I know that I was experimenting with one of our imaginary questions...gaining good "grandma knowledge". I went to the oven to check on the baking cookies and was completely disappointed with the sight I beheld upon turning on the oven light. The cookies smelled delicious but were surprisingly flat and dark on the pan. What in the world had happened?

Mikey went through the ingredients together and I couldn't come up with what had happened.
....30 minutes later it hit me. I had only put in maybe 1/2 of the flour the recipe called for. I had been cutting it all in half to make just a half-batch of cookies but instead of using the 1/2 scoop i was using the 1/4 scoop and thus the cookies were an apparent disgrace.

rest assured even though they look kinda funny they still were quite tasty.