this is a recipe from my grammy emma, who is no longer with us. you can see the burn marks on the fold from the great fire of 1989. I used this recipe recently for the first time, and it was really great. of course I didn't make it exactly as the recipe directs, because that would be too easy.
I had four leftover egg whites (from making a Chocolate Marvel Pie, but that's another story), so I started by doubling the recipe. but I only had the above amount of chocolate chips, so I used more than double the nuts - but I didn't use pecans, I thought sliced almonds would be better. it takes a long time to beat in all that sugar and get the egg whites to expand, but I kept at it. I preheated the oven for a long time to be sure it was hot enough. I used two large non-stick cookie sheets topped with parchment paper, both in the oven at the same time. our cookies were definitely not dropped from a teaspoon - more like 1 inch x 3 inches. they don't spread. I left the oven ON for 5 minutes after putting them in, then turned off the oven and didn't open it for about 2 hours. but the mr. couldn't wait for cookies overnight (he has to have his jalapeño bagel for breakfast), so without opening the oven, I turned it back on to 350 for about 15 minutes. then I took the cookies out of the oven and placed the parchment paper, with cookies attached, onto racks to cool completely (doesn't take long). they were just the most lovely expensive vanilla ice cream color, and utterly yummy.
I think if you make the tiny ones described in the recipe, you'd be ok leaving them in the oven for 3 hours as it suggests. but the bigger ones with sliced almonds are very impressive. I don't even think that more chocolate would be better - we thought the proportion I used was excellent. they crunch, they shatter, they ooze, they're chewy. you better try this.
