The Cookie Fiasco

So, my best friend since I was 12 blogged about some homemade chocolate chip cookies she loves to make. She's quite a cook/baker and has good taste. So after her cousin asked for the recipe and she posted I decided I would try it out. Today was the day. Ria completed writing and reading classes satisfactorily right after Daddy left for his night job and subsequently sat down to watch MARY POPPINS. As you will recall, this is a LONG movie. I also had a few hours until our hour-long walk. So I knew I had time to make the cookies. (I haven't quite figured out baking with children yet, so prefer to do it on my own WHEN* I do it.)

I would like to share that I have been actively baking AND cooking on my own since I was 11 or 12 in my parents' home and have always been quite good and comfortable in the kitchen. I often loosely follow recipes when cooking, but have known (it seems sort of common sense to me for some reason) that I should not depart from a recipe for baked goods. Well, since Jess went to J&W University to become a Chef I have subsequently learned that recipes for baked goods are not like cooking recipes. Baking recipes are actually chemical formulas and when the ratios are altered the final product is often disasterous. So, I know this and sort of already knew it without knowing it! :)

Well, today I set out to make the cookies from my friend's blog. I'm good at baking and even though I haven't done it in a few months because of being preggie, ill, too busy, or all of the afore listed possibilities. But I didn't feel any concern about the time away. And rightly so.

As it happens, being away from the kitchen is not the problem. It's preggie/Mama brain that IS! I made the dough just fine until I got to the flour. (I doubled the recipe, by the way.) Well, I didn't double the flour. When did I realize this fact? Well, my first clue should have been when I was spooning the dough out for baking and it was REALLY gooey. I mean, I KNOW how cookie doughs look and feel and this was just NOT right. But I thought, "Well, maybe that's what makes this dough so chewy." Uhhhh, NO! So, I loaded TWO pans into the oven and after 8 minutes!!! realized my mistake. These cookies are only supposed to bake for 8-10 minutes! I checked on them immediately and was relieved to find that none of them had dripped onto the heating element to start an oven fire!!! SAVED!

Well, the dough certainly was not. I scraped it off one stone right away and have a bowl of partially cooked cookie dough. It tastes fine, but since I'm preggie I will not be indulging. The other pan I continued to bake a little longer. When I scraped those cookies off they were almost cookies except that they were WAY too crumbly. They happen to taste very candy-like. I will also not being eating those because I get REALLY weird feelings when I eat overly sweet things with this pregnancy... almost like I've had a cup of coffee (yes, I DO know what that feels like as I did use that substance when I was working 2 full-time jobs in Utah and again when I was working midnight shifts at 7-11 and a parttime job in VA before I met Jess). I also feel similar, after eating sugary things, to when I used to take those pills that truckers take to stay awake on the road... I cannot remember what they were called. They ARE legal, but certainly no good for a body. Unfortunately I didn't comprehend the ills at the time.

Anyway, I added almost 2 cups of flour to the remaining dough and the rest of the cookies have turned out all right. Did I mention that the whole fiasco is because I completely forgot to double the flour along with all the other ingredients? I just want to make it clear that these cookies are probably every bit as amazing as my friend believes they are and I'm just a dun-dun-head! But, after my experience today, I'm going to stick to my Nestle's Chocolate Chip recipe (with a little substitution of oats and oat flour for some of the white flour) as my personal favorite. I think, though, that were I to do an AMERICA'S TEST KITCHEN on the two side-by-side mine would probably still win for me... and my friend's would still win for her!!! heeheehee ;)