Cookie Wrecks
Some of you will have heard of the blog - and now book - called "Cake Wrecks: When Professional Cakes Go Hilariously Wrong." Well, this is about my recent cookie wrecks. Unfortunately they are not disastrous enough to make a book from (although with self-publishing, you never know!) but they have been bad enough.
It started, of course, with my brownies a few weeks back (read about it here) which ended up in the delicious but completely unpresentable Brownie Jumble.
Last week it continued with plain, straight-forward, "never-fail" chocolate chip cookies. That "never-fail" must be an ironic title, because I found a way. I doubled the recipe, but managed to more than double the butter content, so the first two dozen came out of the oven flattened into solid sheets of cookie. The kids rather liked the idea of eating these (who hasn't dreamed of edible bed sheets?), but I was less enthusiastic about taking them to share at the church Christmas caroling. I improvised by pouring the remaining batter into a 9x13 pan and calling them chocolate chip bars. I suppose this wasn't completely a failure, but it certainly was an unexpected twist on the original.
Then, just last night, I pulled out my recipe for Nut Goodie Bars. This recipe was given to me by my friend Cheris, aka "The Dessert Lady," in Dayton, OH, and has become a Christmas tradition for us. It's more like candy than mere "bars"; it's so rich I have to cut tiny squares and just one is enough. For a few minutes. Well, at least until you finish that glass of milk and clear the palate. The recipe starts with melting chocolate chips, butterscotch chips and peanut butter together, then pouring half of that mixture into the bottom of a large pan. The remainder has to sit around and wait to go on top of the middle layer. So, long story short (-ish), I left the chocolate/butterscotch/peanut butter mixture on the stove to stay liquidy. I put it on the lowest heat possible but still, it baked solid before I could get the middle layer poured and set. *sigh*
So, now I have a large pan of Nut Goodie Bars in my freezer with no top layer! It's enough to disturb sleep. Well, not my sleep. I'm not like that. I can sleep with *gasp* dirty dishes in my sink. Do my dirty dishes bother you? Well, if they do, you are welcome to come and wash those dishes for me any ol' time it gets to be too much for you. I'll leave the light on.
I think this series of cookie wrecks means I should just go and buy out Trader Joe's peppermint Jo-Jos and call it good. They never fail. Never disappoint. Never turn into bar cookies. I'll put them on my special Christmas serving plate and no one will know the difference. Right?
It started, of course, with my brownies a few weeks back (read about it here) which ended up in the delicious but completely unpresentable Brownie Jumble.
Last week it continued with plain, straight-forward, "never-fail" chocolate chip cookies. That "never-fail" must be an ironic title, because I found a way. I doubled the recipe, but managed to more than double the butter content, so the first two dozen came out of the oven flattened into solid sheets of cookie. The kids rather liked the idea of eating these (who hasn't dreamed of edible bed sheets?), but I was less enthusiastic about taking them to share at the church Christmas caroling. I improvised by pouring the remaining batter into a 9x13 pan and calling them chocolate chip bars. I suppose this wasn't completely a failure, but it certainly was an unexpected twist on the original.
Then, just last night, I pulled out my recipe for Nut Goodie Bars. This recipe was given to me by my friend Cheris, aka "The Dessert Lady," in Dayton, OH, and has become a Christmas tradition for us. It's more like candy than mere "bars"; it's so rich I have to cut tiny squares and just one is enough. For a few minutes. Well, at least until you finish that glass of milk and clear the palate. The recipe starts with melting chocolate chips, butterscotch chips and peanut butter together, then pouring half of that mixture into the bottom of a large pan. The remainder has to sit around and wait to go on top of the middle layer. So, long story short (-ish), I left the chocolate/butterscotch/peanut butter mixture on the stove to stay liquidy. I put it on the lowest heat possible but still, it baked solid before I could get the middle layer poured and set. *sigh*
So, now I have a large pan of Nut Goodie Bars in my freezer with no top layer! It's enough to disturb sleep. Well, not my sleep. I'm not like that. I can sleep with *gasp* dirty dishes in my sink. Do my dirty dishes bother you? Well, if they do, you are welcome to come and wash those dishes for me any ol' time it gets to be too much for you. I'll leave the light on.
I think this series of cookie wrecks means I should just go and buy out Trader Joe's peppermint Jo-Jos and call it good. They never fail. Never disappoint. Never turn into bar cookies. I'll put them on my special Christmas serving plate and no one will know the difference. Right?
That's really funny, because I just wrecked some cookies yesterday. I was trying to make peanut butter cookies, and forgot to add the peanut butter (you might wonder how I could have done this, but clearly, it is possible) and the egg! I realized both mistakes when the cookie batter wouldn't stick together (it's like Meg in Little Women: "The jelly won't jell!"). So, I thought, who cares, why do all these ingredients have to go into the bowl in such a specific order? I still don't know why they have to go into the bowl in a specific order, I just know (now) that they do. I had to make a second batch.
ReplyDeleteChristina