What do you do when you embark on a challenging cookie recipe and the result is a total flop? Do you toss them all? Do you make every attempt to pass them off as good? Do you put them on a cookie tray at a party you are hosting in your home and hope your friends will like them? Maybe even wrap them in nice little packages and give them to those same friends? The problem with that is if those friends read your blog and realize you are trying to give them a bad cookie. Some friend YOU ARE! There is sure to be whispers in the corners of your home among guests.
This was a Cocoa Noile Cookie described as “a wonderful addition to wedding cookie trays or to serve at festive parties”. I must have messed this one up because it is so unbelievably sweet that all I can think of doing with this cookie is crumbling a very tiny smidge over ice cream. I can’t imagine eating a whole cookie. Maybe if it were made the size of an M&M….. no… not even then.
If you have ever heard of this cookie or have baked them before, I would LOVE to hear your thoughts.
For those who are interested and think “she must have messed it up”…here is the recipe.
- 6 egg whites
- 1 lb confectioners sugar
- 5/16 oz pkg of Vanilla sugar *This may be the area of screw up… I used 5 TBS of vanilla sugar
- 2 oz cocoa
- 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
- 2 cups chopped walnuts
Preheat oven to 325 F. Whip egg whites in electric mixer for 5 minutes. Gradually add confectioners sugar and vanilla sugar. Continue to whip 15 minutes.
Gently fold the cocoa, cinnamon, and walnuts into the sugar mixture. Drop by tsp onto a greased cookie sheet (about 1 1/2 inches apart) and bake 12 minutes. * Make sure they are done because the result for undercooked cookies is even MORE of a disaster…
Store in covered tins. They will keep for weeks.
“The Cookie That Nobody Liked”. It sounds like a sad Christmas story that could be made animated for TV. Any writers, producers out there?
Maybe I can give these to my sister? No, she reads this blog…Sue? do you think Sam might like them? 🙁
Joanne
They could be described as the perfect cookie, flavorful but not too sweet. Blog Hosts
That sounds like me trying to make meringues with splenda and brown sugar for baking. They tasted ok but they sure looked sad. My hubby called them my dung cookies.
Well, he eats anything, we can try.
I’m my harshest critic in the kitchen and I have no qualms about tossing a batch of something that I think is a disaster. I hate wasting food but sometimes a batch of something has to get tossed. 🙂
Dawn: There are a lot of things I make that Ted refers to as “dung” recipes. Sometimes I agree and sometimes I don’t.
Sue: I’ll bring a tin in and we can get “Mikey …no … SAM to eat them, ’cause (as you said) he’ll eat ANYTHING!”
Carrie: I should do the toss action more often but I’m always thinking that I’ll invent some wonderful way to use the dud food. High hopes, I guess.
These sound very simular to the Easter Story Cookies that are a tradition in my sister’s family:
http://www.dltk-bible.com/recipes/easter_story_cookies.htm
those cookies, I have to say, the kids find them fun to make, and listen to the story, ect, ect….
But, honestly, they are not well liked. Not an issues, since it is part of Easter breakfast which is full of sweet goodies like homemade cinnomon rolls and coffee cake, and in addition, every child just recieved the traditional 25 lbs of candy not counting the 65 lbs of chocolalte, and the kids just happily ignore them.
i don’t think you did anything wrong. I have bitten into them to see the ’empty tomb’, and my response is always, ‘OMG, I think i just got a cavity to represent the empty tomb, just now, from that one bite. It’s like an anti-miricale!’
Seeing as you said you used 5 Tbsp of the vanilla sugar, which is more akin to fine granulated, I would expect something like this as a result. The granulated sugar will “melt” so to speak, where the 10X will do less of that. I suspect the intent of the recipe is supposed to be more like a Pierre Hermes style Macaron. But with the overdose of the wrong sugar, you deflated your whites and caused undue spread.
Hint: If you have one of those “Grandma” old time cookie recipes and they spread too much, substitute some 10x sugar for some of the granulated. It will help tighten them up a bit. In some cases, much better than adding more flour.
For the recipe you posted, I would do more of a “grind” on the nuts than a chop.
Here’s a good Macaron post for you to explore. As you ca see when you break down the recipe components and subtract the cocoa, they are very similar.
http://joepastry.com/index.php?title=how_to_make_macarons&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
Wow, nice pictures.