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?