Joanne's Red Velvet Black and White Cookies
Christina's Banana Walnut Chocolate Cookies
Valerie's Black Magic Chocolate Mint Cookies
So I thought I would jump on the bandwagon and bake some cookies this weekend. I had a really busy weekend, so I woke up early Saturday morning to try my best to make Levain's famous chocolate chocolate chip cookies.
Ever since I ate those cookies 2 weeks ago, I have been craving them every day. They were outrageous.
I had this picture to go by. See the tray of cookies? Those dough balls are huge.
Here I zoomed in for you. Aren't you so glad you have me to do these things?
I was pretty sure I knew what to do to achieve this kind of cookie. I knew I needed baking powder in the recipe, cold cold butter and big balls of dough.
So I made a batch of chocolate chocolate chip cookies with extra flour, butter and baking powder. The dough was out of control - so rich and fudgy. I could have just gone to town on this bowl.
But instead, I ambitiously made baseball sized cookies. They were so big, the whole batch of dough only made 6 cookies.
I should have known this would be a disaster, but I was confident in my idea. I stuck the whole tray in the freezer for a few minutes to make sure the dough was really cold before going in the oven.
At this point, I was so excited. I was convinced these cookies would tear through the country. Eventually Oprah would make my recipe and tell all her friends about it. Before next week, I would be traveling around the world telling the good news about these cookies. They would heal the sick and bring world peace.
Here is what happened in the oven...
The cookies started to spread out at the bottom but not at the top. After 5 minutes, the edges were starting to brown while the middle of the cookies were raw. The chocolate chips had hardly even melted. After 10 minutes, the edges of the cookies were splitting and getting even more brown while nothing happened in the center. After 15 minutes, I took them out of the oven and set them on the counter, hoping the cookies might continue to cook a bit. I was very wrong. I tried to pick a GIANT cookie up and it fell apart. So I put them back in the oven for 7 more minutes. When I took them out again, they were done all the way through - but burnt on the edges and too tough in the middle.
Cookie disaster.
I didn't even take pictures because I was so mad. I just threw those baseballs in the trash can and stormed around my house cleaning things because that's what I do when I'm mad.
All this to say - cooking is about trying new things, failing, making mistakes, learning from those mistakes and trying again. It's not always perfect, but I will keep testing recipes. It makes it all the more sweet when you finally get it right.
Does anyone have some kitchen disasters to share?
Thanks for still loving me when I burn cookies.
