I’m not a baker. Sadly, I grew up with boxed brownie, cookie and cake mixes. Everything I made was always consistently moist, so I never made anything from scratch because it was too complicated. With cookies from scratch (or what I call “scratch cookies”), I’d put in so much time and effort into baking. And, for what? A dry cookie.
Have you ever had a spicy cookie? Six-Spice Oatmeal Raisin Cookies are not your typical gooey, sweet cookie. These spices… kick in at the end of your bite. Who’s ever heard of cayenne pepper in a cookie recipe? I admit that I didn’t use all the spices because a small jar of ground cloves in NY was $9.99 and the recipe called for a pinch of ground cloves. I was not spending $9.99 so I could use a pinch of ground cloves, once. Let’s face it; I would only use it, once. What else didn’t I use? Cumin and nutmeg, which would explain why the ginger was so potent. I think we (my roomies are guinea pigs almost every time) all agreed that the ginger was a bit strong.
My other guinea pig, Yanina, was so excited when I told her I was making oatmeal raisin cookies. She’s the kind of person who will tell it to you like it is- no BS, just straight off the bat to your face this is how I feel kind of deal. I knew that if it was a bad/good/dry/moist cookie, I could count on her to tell it to me straight up. Everyone needs a friend like that- someone who will give you a good kick in the a$$ when you need it most. That’s why we’re friends.
Luckily, my oatmeal raisin cookies met her high expectations. She’s a spicy gal and these ones matched her palate.
Rating: 1-5 (5=Excellent, 1=worst cookie of my life)
Taste: 3.5, I’m a gooey gal. The cookie was stiff. I like sweet cookies.
Recipe: 4.5- I didn’t use all the spices; extra points for a unique recipe
Do-Ability: 3.5- Baking is hard. You have to be precise- I get flustered too easily and there are always too many directions that I end up doing backwards. Although I separated the dry ingredients from the wet ones, I put the flour and spices in a big bowl and the butter, sugar and eggs into a smaller bowl. If I read the directions correctly, I would have noticed that the dry ingredients are supposed to go into the wet ingredients and not vice versa. I mixed the batter in a small bowl instead of a big bowl and then transferred the dough into the big bowl later.
When baking, does the order really matter? Aren’t they all going in the same place?