I own at least dozen cookbooks featuring cookie recipes. I subscribe to several magazines offering at least occasional cookie recipes. I also have the Internet and its vast cookie recipe collection at my disposal 24/7.I bake hundreds of cookies every holiday season. I own cookie scoops, a food scale, cutters, and four cookie sheets. I started a blog all about baking cookies.
You get the idea I have an interest in cookie making?
One thing I have never done, though, is create my very own cookie. Sure, I've messed around with other people's recipes, swapping in different mix-ins or substituting one sugar or extract for another. I even once modified a standard chocolate chip cookie recipe to create double chocolate chip cookies. Still, I've never conceived an original cookie concept and developed my own recipe for it. Reading the Bakers' Banter blog over the past few months has convinced me that baked goods don't have to come from time-honored formulas, though. Instead, new cookie recipes come from ideas put into practice using the basic skills any baker has developed. You use your sense of how ingredients work together to get started, and then you simply tweak each batch as you go until you achieve perfection.
OK, that really probably isn't so simple. But hey, I need the motivation to start!
Right now, I'm considering what sorts of characteristics and flavors I like in cookies. In addition, I'm thinking about other desserts I like but would like more if they were as convenient to bake and store as cookies.
Some ideas:
Cookie types: I love buttery shortbread and chewy oatmeal cookies. I don't care for roll-out cookies (so much work!), but I'm not against slice-and-bakes.
Mix-ins: I'm a huge fan of nuts, especially almonds and pecans. Dried fruits, such as cranberries and dates, also sound good. Chocolate chunks are nice, but I'm leery of non-chocolate chips and their strange ingredients. I'm wondering whether fresh fruits like apples could work.
Flavors: I have some maple and almond extracts in the cupboard screaming to get used. I enjoy excessive vanilla extract in baked goods as well -- less and you don't really notice it. Warm, sweet spices like nutmeg and cinnamon make me happy, but I'm not so keen on including any overly unusual herbs or spices.
Desserts: It occurs to me, what with Thanksgiving around the corner, that I don't like baking pie. I love eating homemade pie, but raw pastry and I don't get along. Why not a nice apple pie cookie instead? Or what about creme brulée or butter cake, while we're on the subject?
What do you think? Any cookie cravings out there?
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1 comment:
An apple pie cookie sounds delicious! Almost any pie converted into a cookie sounds great...lemon meringue cookie, pumpkin pie cookie, pecan pie cookie. I'm also a huge fan of peanut butter. What about a spin on an oreo, but instead of white filling, some kind of peanut butter creme?
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