Tuesday, December 11, 2007

I couldn't sell the cookies either*

I know, I know. I promised some tales of Christmas goodies. But then I got caught up in this little thing called sewing. About two weeks ago, I had a crazy idea to make some Christmas presents. Then I decided to return my sewing machine because I wasn't pleased with it. And when I failed to buy a new one on Saturday as planned, I was left sewing machineless for the entire weekend since EVERYTHING IS CLOSED on Sunday.

Alisha, you're probably thinking, since you didn't have your sewing machine, why didn't you spend the time making those Christmas goodies? Well, it's because I also forgot to buy the powdered sugar and graham cracker-like cookies when I went to the store on Saturday. And the grocery store was closed on Sunday. Weren't you listening when I mentioned that before? I was practically yelling.

Okay, to be perfectly honest there is one grocery store open on Sundays. And it's not terribly far away. If you consider a 10 minutes walk and 20 minutes on public transportation each way "not terribly far away." Which, by the way, I don't anymore. Consider it far away, that is. But an hour to get powdered sugar and graham cracker-like cookies is a bit much. Especially when I have other things, like church, going on the same day. That leaves hardly anytime for candy-making.

But I will go ahead and tell you about a failed cookie making experiment. A while back, someone mentioned Girl Scout cookies on their blog. And that reminded me of a recipe on Top Secret Recipes. (I would link directly to the recipe, but I'm not sure whether that would violate the User Agreement I accepted which includes not distributing the recipe. It's a free recipe -- most on the site are not -- so just search for "thin mints" and you'll find it.) Peppermint is Christmas-y, so I thought I would give the recipe a try and possibly throw them into the Christmas goody mix.

Well, they didn't really work out. I don't blame the recipe. I probably should have added just a touch more water. The dough was very dry and impossible to roll out. So I decided to roll it into a log and slice the cookies rather than rolling out the dough and using a cookie cutter. The cookie dough log was less than appealing.


But I continued. I think the big problem was that I didn't slice the cookies thin enough. After I baked them, they weren't crispy like the middle of a Girl's Scout Thin Mint. They were tasty, just not what I was going for. So in the end I decided to not dip them in chocolate and Brian and I just ate them plain.

I think I may still make some thin-mint type "cookies" for Christmas, but I'm going to stick with the Ritz dipped in chocolate method. I know, it doesn't sound good -- but they really do taste similar to Thin Mints.

* By the way, I never made it past the Brownies, so I didn't have the chance to try to sell the cookies. I'm sure I would have been a success because, really, who can resist the Girl Scout cookies?

3 comments:

Lori said...

Have you tried making a peanut butter sandwich out of ritz crackers and then dipping the whole thing in chocolate?! Talk about a yummy treat!

Alisha said...

Lori - I haven't tried that, but it sounds yummy. I'll have to see if I have any peanut butter left after making my other goodies.

Unknown said...

I haven't even started making Christmas goodies yet. In the years before Bennett, I always had all of my shopping, all of my wrapping, and a good share of my baking done by now. This year? Not so much. But I've done a lot of baby-cuddling, waving, and sill face-making, which is a lot more fun.