The recipe this week was chasen by Natalie of Whats for Supper. I have been so busy lately that I was planning to skip this recipe. But, after some last minute convincing, I decided to give it a go. Besides, its a holiday weekend and cookies are acceptable...right???
However, I really didn't have a number of the ingredients called for in the recipe and I really refused to buy them! I mean after all -- is pastry flour that different from regular flour? I think not! So I took a gamble and substituted a number of the ingredients. I substituted:
wheat flour for the pastry flour
light brown sugar instead of dark brown sugar
light brown sugar instead of dark brown sugar
instant oats instead of regular oats (oh crap, as I am typing this I am realizing that I completely forgot the oats!) Oh well!
Vanilla Almond Special K for the bran cereal
craisins instead of the nuts (since i already had almonds from the cereal)
Overall, I thought the cookies turned out really well. Granted, I have no idea what they are supposed to taste like given all the substitutions and the forgetting of the oats! I am just glad I have some cookies -- because making these cookies was really a disaster.
How was making cookies a disaster you say. Well -- in digging for the nutmeg, I knocked a number of other spices out of the cabinet and the glass bottles they were in broke (mess # 1). I then managed to spill just about an entire bottle of vanilla down the front and corner of my lower kitchen cabinets (mess # 2). Then there was the whole baby food debacle. I bought the smallest jar of carrot baby food I could find. Yes, there were smaller jars, but they were all some horrific combination of fruits and veggies like: carrots and bananas; carrots and green beans; carrots and sweet potatoes. YUCK! Now I know why babies are always spitting their food out. Those combinations sound just plain gross.
Anyways - back to the small jar of baby food. The recipe said 1/4 cup (1 small jar) of baby food. Well the jar of baby food I bought was 4 oz. Is it just me or is that 1/2 a cup? So I debated for a long time whether to use the entire jar of baby food as the recipe said or just half of it which would have been 1/4 cup or 2 oz. Finally, I just said screw it and dumped the entire jar of baby food in the bowl. I don't understand anything "baby"!!!
But, I did finally manage to make the cookies. Here they are. They were yummy -- however I don't know how I feel about eating them for breakfast. They did make a nice after dinner dessert though! 
Thanks Natalie for picking this recipe this week. I will definitely be making my substituted version of these cookies again.
My goodness. What an experience you had.
ReplyDeleteAt least the result was good. They look great.
Baby food is definitely gross. When my dog was really sick, we had to feed him meat baby foods and rice (meat baby food is also a good way to get cats to eat their medicines), and it was SO DISGUSTING! OMG, I could barely get it to him without throwing up. Blech.
ReplyDeleteHa ha ha!! Looks like they turned out great in spite of all the changes! I actually think the Special K sounds great! And I laughed out loud at the line about why babies always spit out their food. When I was looking for carrots, I saw something like "chicken risotto" in a jar. That just can't be good. Anyway, great job on the cookies!
ReplyDeleteDisasters are a double edge sword: Either it completely breaks any tension in the house, or it multiples it by a factor of 10.
ReplyDeleteThe baby food bit is hilarious. I wouldn't want to eat any of the crap either.
If you are interested in information about the differences between flours, my blogging idol Joe of http://www.joepastry.com is running a series of articles on that very subject this week!
--Nick/imafoodblog.com
That does sounds like quite a debacle! Baby food is gross, I just couldn't bring myself to buy any. I used some applesauce instead. They look fab...great picture :)
ReplyDelete-Sara
Great looking cookies......yours are def. darker than mine, I like that. I should have left them in a minute more. Love the special K substitution.......and I totally hear you on the baby food......yuck!
ReplyDeleteGreat post, though my heart did go out to you at the part about the spice jars breaking (at that moment, I could see them free-falling and feel that sickening feeling you get when things like that happen and you're powerless to stop them). I think this must be a very versatile recipe, because several people tried to break the recipe and couldn't. But you're right, these also make a nice after dinner cookie!
ReplyDeleteThanks for baking along with me! I am glad that you enjoyed them.
ReplyDeleteJust think. Without the messes, your story would not be as interesting. This is called, "finding good in everything."
ReplyDeleteI am glad that through all that, the cookies were edible and then some.