When the expensive cookies arrived, Gary would only eat the oatmeal ones, because they were “healthy.”
I decided to make him oatmeal cookies, and I turned to the America’s Test Kitchen cookbook because only the most scientifically validated cookies could show my love.
There I found Chocolate-chunk Oatmeal Cookies with Pecans and Dried Cherries, and turned the page because who has the ingredients for something like that just lying around.
Chocolate chunks. I lost heart here because I didn't even have semi-sweet chocolate chunks. On further reading, it was evident they wanted me to take a four-ounce bar of German's "sweet" baking chocolate and chop it up.
Oatmeal. I had a big container left over because the Trivia Night shortbread called for a quarter cup.
Pecans. Stocked up on pecans because they go into my salad every day.
Dried Cherries. "I don't have dried cherries," I thought, "But maybe that bin in the back of the pantry has Craisins or something." But no. Smiling up at me from the top of the bin was an unopened package of dried cherries from the fruitcake two Christmases ago.
So, pantry destiny manifested. All signs point to cookies.
And they were sublime, only, sadly, I forgot you shouldn't mix steroids and sugar. It wasn't until Gary described the exhaustion he felt after one cookie that I remembered the chocolate layer cake that wiped me out when I was on Prednisone.
I have frozen them so he can enjoy them later, poor fella.
... wait, ATK had you chopping chocolate and it didn't bother asking you to chop *eating* chocolate but instead specified sweetened baker's chocolate??? Sigh. Still! If they were sublime, 1. maybe they were on to something and that is just the Right Chocolate even though it is not the Best Chocolate, and 2. they are unlikely to get *significantly* more sublime with "eating" chocolate of the same cacao mass/sugar proportions.
Congratulations on the ingredient-possession success!!! (also wait, what shortbread calls for oatmeal? That is something I haven't seen before...)
Also oh dear I did not know that about prednisone and sugar. Yikes.
Fortunately, oatmeal cookies generally freeze really well! (I hope you will also be eating the sublime cookies intermittently, if your body tolerates that?)
Posted by: KC | October 01, 2024 at 10:17 AM
KC - Not sweetened chocolate, but those green boxed bars of Baker's German's Sweet Chocolate, which is in no way sweet. There was a lot of brown sugar to balance it. The dry oatmeal was pureed into .25 cup oat flour for the shortbread (I just used oatmeal flour the second time) . I got the second to last frozen cookie this morning. They were really good, like bring to work good.
Posted by: theQueen | October 01, 2024 at 04:35 PM
The internet thinks that Baker's German's Sweet Chocolate has sugar in it, but yeah, still in no way *sweet* makes sense. (but also: you should totally make this again, splitting the batch between a hardcore-dark chocolate bar that tastes goood by itself and a reprise of the Baker's... for science?)
Posted by: KC | October 02, 2024 at 09:00 AM
KC - oh, I already want to try all kinds of variations, but that is why I got the ATK cookbook: they do all the experiments.
Posted by: theQueen | October 02, 2024 at 04:42 PM
I would be *very* curious to know whether they say "so, we tried actually-good chocolate in this recipe, and it didn't make enough of a difference to be worth it" or whether they will only have included trying different sweetness-levels of chocolate... (they... pretty rarely... suggest that lower-quality ingredients will still give you 90% of the results for half the cost, in the book I have from them)
Posted by: KC | October 04, 2024 at 10:03 AM
KC - Sometimes the cookbook will say why they need a specific ingredient. This just says, "Bittersweet chocolate, dried sour cherries (or cranberries) and toasted pecans gave the right balance of flavors.”
Posted by: theQueen | October 04, 2024 at 11:56 AM