I’m not much of a baker, so this is really a question: Could you substitute honey for some of the sugar, and then the honey would help the cookies fan out more readily? I don’t know how you equate a certain amount to honey to sugar, but I would imagine someone has figured that out. Use less than equal for equal, and you still have something that is basically liquid.
That may work. Honey is pretty much sugar and water. I’m no baker but I have heard honey will make softer cookies.
In addition to the comments above about not melting the butter, let me add here that you should always soften the butter. And that first step, where the white sugar and butter are mixed? The goal isn’t to mix the butter, but to cream the butter.
The sugar in the butter helps to make the butter puffy, i.e., you’re adding air into the butter. Later when you add the leavener (baking soda is two-reactions) the moisture will activate the gas to lighten the cookie a bit more, and the heat will activate it to expand again.
When cool, the egg and gluten proteins from the flour will maintain the foam matrix so that your cookies don’t collapse.
Your objective is to use less sugar in order to reduce sweetness, but as pointed out, you need the sugar to provide the proper flow (Alton Brown always teaches us that white sugar is considered a wet ingredient). What I might try, then, is to substitute another wet ingredient that’s less sweet instead of the sugar.
Maybe some trial and error here, but it would be fun to experiment. Maybe apple sauce, which was a common substitution earlier this century. Don’t try to cream with apple sauce, though; try it instead of sugar. I might try various quantities of natural yogurt, too. Something that provides wetness without sogginess.
The sugar problem is easily recognized. My wife loves my Toll House cookies, and so the first time I was teaching her to make them, she objected to the amount of sugar. She’s my wife not my child, so I didn’t supervise properly, and she slyly, secretely left out half of the sugar, and the result was hard little bready chocolate chip balls. I knew what she’d done immediately, of course!
On my last Toll House round, I forgot at egg time that I had decided to do only one batch, so I added twice the eggs. I was able to double the rest of the ingredients but blanked on doubling the butter. The result was drier and crumblier than I like them, but still good, just not a Toll House. someone else thought they were the best thing ever. Go figure. I’m angling for a chocolate chip cookie bake-off at work so I may make the original and the half-butter and see what happens.
Speaking of Alton Brown, the entirety of Chips for Sister Marsha appears to be available on Youtube. Although I’ve not watched it in years, I seem to recall that Alton goes into a lot of substitutions that affect the final outcome of the cookies. If I have time tonight, I may watch it again.
You could try adding more butter, cos butter helps them spread. Also cook at a slightly lower temperature (maybe 330° instead of 350°).
Be careful with honey; it tastes sweeter than sugar.
IANAB but I’ve read of efforts by the Honey Institute, or some sort of honey producers’ association, to promote the use of honey in baking (cakes, mostly).
It is hygroscopic and leads to deliciously moist cakes but it also is acidic which interferes with rising, either by yeast or baking soda. Unfortunately, the acidity varies from lot to lot so for a kitchen that cannot measure the acidity accurately – most of them – the best bet was to replace about a third of the sugar and it would turn out okay. While trying to confirm this, I came across some advice which goes into more detail. Good luck.
It’s also probably not honey, but rice syrup. Colony collapse disorder has wiped out a huge percentage of the worldwide bee population, honey production is down significantly and yet the available supply of honey is growing. How, you ask? Via adulteration courtesy of the Chinese. It’s not melamine yet, but give them a chance, they’ll get around to it.