Have any of you tried Oreo Cookie Balls yet? My husband brought me one home that someone at his office made. It was so good! I plan to make them for our holiday party this year. They sound very easy to make. Only three ingredients and no baking. If any of you are familiar with chocolate wafer ice box cake these work on the same principle. 1 pkg. (8 oz.) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened 36 OREO Cookies, finely crushed (about 3 cups) 4 pkg. (4 oz. each) BAKER'S Semi-Sweet Chocolate, broken into pieces, melted MIX cream cheese and cookie crumbs until blended. SHAPE into 48 (1-inch) balls. Freeze 10 min. Dip balls in melted chocolate; place in single layer in shallow waxed paper-lined pan. REFRIGERATE 1 hour or until firm. Here is a link that might be useful: Oreo cookie balls

Don't think they've determined it yet. At least not that I've heard. I too grew up eating peanut butter cookie dough and that's still a favorite treat of mine. Haven't had any in years though. I've always been real careful to use rather fresh eggs, at least as fresh as I can get from a store. Although as long as they're kept refrigerated properly. Forgive me "Two Fat Ladies", I know you're choking at the thought!

Report card on last night's pizza experiment... I adopted and adapted much of the excellent advice from the generous people here, and to my taste, achieved a 90% result! First, turned on the oven to full bore before making the dough. Added around an extra cup of flour to my usual mix. (Who measures?) I think this made a big difference, as the finished pizza had a thicker base with some "chew", not crunch. Just threw the granular yeast into the flour, without proving it first. No oil. Added more water than I normally would. Got it to a consistency where it was sticky, without quite sticking to my fingers. Into a covered bowl. By now, the house was so hot that I went out and sat on the verandah, talking to the kangaroos while the dough was rising. An hour later, I just threw the beautifully risen dough onto the pan without a punch and 2nd kneading. No oil on pan. Spread onto the pan and added toppings. I only added minimal toppings, as in the past I've been guilty of overloading it, requiring longer cooking time. Grated the cheese on the fine side, rather than coarsely. Again, less time to cook. Still using top shelf of oven, put in empty 10" pan first, with 12" pizza directly on top of it. It's some insulation, no? Just 10 minutes later, time to eat, and it was wonderful! Bottom only slightly crisp, but properly cooked. Dough chewy but cooked through. I ate the entire thing in 10 minutes with a glass of nice shiraz, and toasted you all! (Paying for it today, though, as I think the 12 chillies were overkill.) So a big thank you from me to you!

Another vote for good old fashioned flat pure aluminum cookie sheets. I didn't mesn to imply that warmth was the only cause of spread—just that no matter what you bake on, if the butter is too warm and soft in the dough, you will have spread. That's also why oil doesn't work well in most cookies. Chloebud, what I do know about a long chill/rest time is that the flour soaks up the water from the butter (and eggs if there are eggs). The result is just druthers. The different level of absoption will give you a different texture, though the difference might be subtle. One problem is that in a long soak, gluten will develop more, making your flour choice more important. You need some gluten for loft and chew, but you don't want tough! I know Chloebud has this down. I'm just pointing out some places where the complexity of it all can trip up people who just change things. I can't even fathom how many thousands of lovely cookies I've baked, but I've know people to use the exact same recipes and fail.