My qualifying exam has passed, but my friends' have not. What do I do? I realize cookies are an always food for friends who still need to take qualifying exam and bake cookies!
I decided to bake two types of cookies today.
The first is a favorite recipe from my friend's blog. I've probably made 6 or 7 batches of these amazing chewy cookies already.
The second is cookie number 2 found on a random website. (click on cookies and scroll down) I got lazy and didn't want to do the jam and chocolate thing.
Anyway, The chocolate chip cookies turned our really great:
The butter wafer cookies were new to me and I didn't know what to expect. I followed the recipe on the first batch and they turned out really cute (if you ignore the fact that I burned the second pan I made because my oven is evil and never allows me to properly control its temperature). To make things better, the cookies melt in your mouth and were really really tasty.
The second batch, I decided, needed to be more interesting. Food coloring and non-vanilla flavoring went into the cookies. I had lavender so I wanted to make lavender cookies but I didn't know how to infuse them with lavendery flavor. I thought adding flowers would be good, but then I worried they would be too bitter. So, maybe adding the flowers to melted butter would coax out some of the floral oils. I melted butter and tried that, but the flavors were not infused. I ended up adding a bit of flower and some water based extract, hoping there would be a hint of lavender to my cookies.
I then decided the floral scent was not robust enough to stand alone against the buttery goodness of the original wafers. Thus, the plan shifted to lavender-orange cookies. I added orange oil, which imparted great essence of orange. I quickly finished the batter and set them baking.
One thing I learned about cookies is how different the batter can be if you use melted vs softened butter. Take these two pictures for example:
The top batter was made with melted butter and was very difficult to work with due to its low viscosity while the bottom one had softened butter which made it all nice and viscous and easily spoonable. If you look at the pictures carefully, you can see how the top one is all goopy and glue-like while the bottom one seems to be stiffer and able to hold its form.
Luckily for me, the blue-green lavender-orange cookies did turn out ok in the end:
I baked them, they expanded, and you can even see the speckles of lavender. They made me think of the hotspring pools at Yellowstone National Park. I think next time I make this, I'll need to make two different colors and swirl them together. :D
Anyway, I had great cookies (aren't the baby ones cute?):
I am also really happy to have really gotten a chance to compare softened vs melted butter. Growing up, my parents didn't bake, so all the baking knowledge I have is from the internet, experience, and friends. (I think it took me 4 years to realize chewy cookies are due to their underbaked nature.)
Time to sleep now!
<3
Hao
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