Thursday, July 2, 2009

CEIMB: Breakfast Cookies a/k/a The Substitution Game

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
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.

9 comments:

  1. My goodness. What an experience you had.
    At least the result was good. They look great.

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  2. 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.

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  3. Ha 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!

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  4. Disasters are a double edge sword: Either it completely breaks any tension in the house, or it multiples it by a factor of 10.

    The 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

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  5. 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 :)

    -Sara

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  6. 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!

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  7. Great 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!

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  8. Thanks for baking along with me! I am glad that you enjoyed them.

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  9. Just think. Without the messes, your story would not be as interesting. This is called, "finding good in everything."

    I am glad that through all that, the cookies were edible and then some.

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