I failed.
I did it again.
I didn’t fail because the cookies were dry.
I failed because Isaid the cookies were dry.
I have been playing around with a whole wheat, olive oil, cinnamon, chocolate chip cookie recipe.
My first batch came out excellent.
So naturally I tried to improve upon excellent.
Note to self, excellent is pretty excellent (as in, excellent enough!).
My second batch came out less than excellent.
Scroll to continue
More Love
How To Cook Turkey London Broil
How to cook turkey london broil? 1. Marinate 2. Roast in a 375˚ F. oven for approximately …
73 Israeli Food Recipes You Need To Try
Yom Haatzamut is just around the corner (in 2021 it will be celebrated from the night of …
Way less than excellent.
In fact they came out so very dry.
Even though I have given the same advice over and over and over again, in person and in print, I simply couldn’t hold myself back.
I always tell you all not to make excuses for your food. Your guests aren’t critics from the New York Times and don’t know how the recipe was supposed to look or taste.
But I convinced myself this situation was different. I wasn’t making silly excuses for missing ingredients.
The cookies were dry.
And I needed everyone to know that I knew that.
Really, I didn’t want to serve the cookies.
But since they came out so excellent the first time I only made 108 this time, to keep in batches in the freezer.
So I had to serve them.
Really, because Hubby made me serve them.
Because he is not into wasting food.
And neither am I.
Unless the food is not edible (as in, really dry!).
And so I served the cookies.
But I just needed my guests to know that I knew that the cookies were dry.
And then Hubby called me out saying “you just couldn’t help yourself, could you?!”
Well I had the chance to do full teshuva (the Hebrew word for “return” with the common connotation of repenting for one’s sins but more accurately meaning a return to one’s original state).
I had 25 friends coming for a BBQ.
I had 72 cookies left to serve.
Do you think I was able to keep quiet and serve them with a smile?
*But what do you really think I should have done? The cookies were very dry (just reiterating in case you somehow missed that point) and I didn’t want my guests to think I was delusional and thought the cookies were good, especially because I am me. Thoughts?
Thanks Shoshana – it’s incredible to know an expert like you suffers from this too… thanks for sharing your dessert hack for my dry cookies, I love it!
I love this post, I am the same way. I hate to serve things that aren’t up to my standards but I also hate to use food. I also either end up eating them myself or trying to turn them into something more company worthy. I love the ideas everyone has posted, I would probably coarsely grind them and use that as the base for a cherry crumble topping.
HEY BETH!!!! Like twins separated at birth we are! So thankful for you sharing what you go through and letting me know you are missing EY – point of the videos is to make you love it and long for it :-). OK so the overcooking thing is a trap we all fall into. Here are a few simple rules of thumb I like to live by: remember the old saying about looking at yourself in the mirror before you leave the house and taking off once accessory. Well now according to fashionistas there is almost no such thing as over accessorizing but according to me there is such thing as overcooking – so look at your menu and cut at least one thing from each category for which you have doubles with the exception of salads. so for example don’t make two kinds of fish or two kugels, or two starchy dishes, or two chickens etc… This is how I cook even for larger crowds: first course for shabbos is fish and a handful of salads/dips meaning a handful (that’s 5 or less) each dip counts as 1, hummus counts as 1, if you put out pickles or edamame for example count each as 1, etc… for the main I do 1 starchy side, 1 chicken, 1 meat, 1 vegetable (and sometimes if it’s a really big crowd a green leafy salad – b/c my first course salads are usually not of the green leafy variety. For desserts NO MORE THAN 2 (I usually make 1 dessert and 1 fruit platter.) And that’s it – DONE! What do you think? How does that stack up based on your menu/how you cook?
yes yes yes! love the open face idea bc a big ice cream sandwich can be too much of a commitment for some people (not for me but for some people 🙂 like Judith said I like the crust idea – also thinking now they may be good as a crumbled topping for a cobbler…
Oh of course so sorry Sharon. So I used this recipe: http://www.joyofkosher.com/recipes/chocolate-chip-cookies-2/ and made the following conversions. 1) I subbed the 1 1/2 cups of total flour for 1 1/2 cups of 70% Whole Wheat Flour 2) Subbed the salt for sea salt and then added some coarse flake sea salt on top of each cookie just for good measure, just before baking (if you do this test one baking sheet first to taste and then adjust) 3)cinnamon: I just added to taste and kept tasting the batter (any excuse!) and then like the salt I sprinkled some more on top just before baking 4) I had very little marg left (I like earth balance) so I just subbed the rest for olive oil.
yes yes yes Judith!!!!!! love the grind!!!
Yeah Brooke you awesome optimist!!! Since I wrote this I was also thinking ice cream sandwiches. Great minds!
Hey Sora Deetza!!!! totally – my oven is soooo off and I think I have a handle on it – but here the issue was the batter recipe not the oven.
Hi Adriana – you are too hysterical – that gorgeous kitchen I left behind in NY BUT I am currently putting together a few Pinterest boards to plan my “G-d-Willing-One-Day-Gorgeous-Kitchen-in-Israel”!!!!
OMG welcome home!!!!!!! Cooking here is in some ways like learning how to walk all over again. Love how creative you are and WHY didn’t I think about chocolate spread cookie sandwiches? Even better let’s combine your two ideas and call ’em chocolate cookie spread sandwich dunkers – YAY!
Chocolate chip cookie sandwiches! You can use Hashachar Ha’ole! (It’s been around in the US longer than Nutella. Haha!) Aren’t you glad they make it parse too?
I want some cookies and spread now.
I meant pareve.
yes and yes!!!!!! and me too!
I am SUPER guilty of the same thing. I love to bake and cook, and I like to think that I have a certain standard for what I serve. (I can be a bit of a perfectionist!) this doesn’t stop me from trying new things, it just totally bums me out if they don’t work out. Thankfully, I generally have more than enough alternatives that my guests can chose from so the bad stuff often gets left to the side. Still, I can never just let it go… I insist on announcing it and making terrible faces when I “brave” my less then ideal cooking which makes it oh so appealing for others to even try. So, I totally feel ha! But my real question here is do you have any articles or posts (or just general advise) as to how I can pare down my menus? I haven’t found a way for me to cook for large groups of people without overlooking by a lot. This is not a new thing, but this past Yom tov I really went overboard and wound up having to throw away too many salads and more perishable dishes. Since Baal tashchis isn’t really “how I roll” I’d love some advise as to how to figure out how many kugels, salads, and veggie dishes are appropriate per meal. Thanks! P.S. Your video makes me miss E”Y more and more each day…. In a very good way! 🙂
I was going to say what Brooke suggested- serve with ice cream. But I was envisioning a scoop of ice cream atop one cookie (an “open” sandwich;)
Alternatively, use the cookies (crumbled up)as a pie crust for an ice cream pie or mousse pie.
Will you please share the first, excellent-enough recipe? whole wheat, olive oil, cinnamon, chocolate chip cookies – that sounds pretty excellent.
grind up dry cookies & make a piecrust from them–fill pie with something creamy (not dry!).
grind up & make rum/sabra liqueur balls.
grind up & sprinkle on yogurt/pudding/ice cream.
grind up and freeze until you can figure out some other use!
are you sensing a theme here?
Not to worry! Next time just “sandwich them together with ice cream. Besides, you didn’t fail; you learned something!
It’s worthwhile to check your oven temps with an oven thermometer. Often they are off–i need to up mine to 365 for it to really hit 350!
Oh dear, I know its hard to contain yourself in those situations! Did you have your husband or a friend announce it for you? I’m going to be honest, I am writing to see if that gorgeous kitchen is the one in America or RBS.
A similar thing just happened to me this Sukkos (our first in Israel) when I over baked my schnitzel and my husband said very nicely “I think it needs some moisture”. Idea – ratatouille over schnitzel – tasted good, looked great!
I would serve the cookies with a cup of tea or milk and call them tea dunkers or biscotti-esk, or serve with israeli chocolate spread… kids will eat those cookies up!
LOL!!!!! I have never tried the “don’t bother eating them” line but I have eaten all the unservable food myself, after hours… thanks for understanding.
I liked this article. I am totally the same way. I can make something once and it will come out great. I try making it again and it doesn’t come out the same way. I do one of two things: I serve them but tell people not to bother eating them because they are too hard (usually happens to my cookies) or I don’t serve them and my mom and I wind up eating the really hard cookies with big glasses of milk. That has happened repeatedly with stuff I make at school. Everything comes out great at school but I try to make it at home and it fails miserably. I keep trying though. I am sure I will get it right eventually.