Tuesday, April 10, 2012

My 2nd Ever Kitchen Disaster: Oatmeal Cranberry & Walnut Cookies


I first saw the recipe on the Chew in one of my marathon sessions of watching The Chew. One episode two or three I stumbled on these delicious cookies! Oatmeal cookies have never been my favorite, but the addition of the tart cranberries really intrigued me!

Look Yummy.Taste Horrible
As part of the recipe you actually grind up oatmeal into a oatmeal flour. You also add walnuts and dried cherries. I was able to get dried cherries with no added sugar, which was a plus. On the show they said these cookies have a ton of protein and fiber, which make me feel much better eating them!Let's be honest people, a cookie is a cookie. The recipe uses two sticks of butter so don't eat like ten of these thinking they are uber healthy. Come to think of it, I think white chocolate chips would be a nice addition to these cookies.

 Now, on to my problem. First off, I love this picture of the animal in an apron. I found it on pinterest and it literally cracks me up every time I look at it. I decided I would use it in my blog any time a recipe did not come out right. This recipe was one of them. When these babies came out of the oven they looked so good! I could not wait to eat them. I sank my teeth into them and they tasted good at first, but they had a really terrible after taste. I have no idea where I went wrong. All of the ingredients were yummy alone (cranberries, walnuts dough batter) so I have no idea where I went wrong. I added chia seeds on a whim, but they are said to have no taste so I don't think it was them. I thought maybe it was adding baking soda. Is that normal in baking? I was thinking maybe they meant to put baking powder? No idea.Here is the recipe from the Chew that I used.

 I will absolutely try these again because they are nutritious ( well, as nutritious as a cookie can be) and they have alot of potential. I decided to include this post even though they were a disaster because everyone makes mistakes in the kitchen! Even this lady!

What was your biggest kitchen blunders?

9 comments:

  1. Love the photo too! I do a lot of baking and the one thing I have learned as opposed to cooking, don't invent. Baking soda can sometimes leave a bitter taste, depending on what you're combining it with. Always use exact measurements of baking soda or baking powder as they both produce a type of chemical reaction (to see this in action, make a red velvet cake).

    My biggest kitchen blunder has happened time and time again when I try to make a six egg pound cake. The cake is beautiful and yummy but 5 out of ten times I get it wrong and I can't tell you why.

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    1. I really think it was the baking soda because it had a super bitter after taste. I agree with measurements. I need to be more exact instead of eyeballing stuff like I usually do!

      And I totally want this 6 egg pound cake!

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  2. Oh, and always make sure your baking soda and baking powder are fresh. Even with a pretty long shelf life, once opened you should replace often.

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    1. I'll send you the recipe by e mail so you can try it.

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    2. Awesome!!! And yeah lord knows how old my baking powder/soda are.. might need to check that when I get home!

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  3. I HATE when I get really excited about a recipe, and it turns out crappy! In case you wanted to give these cookies another try, I have a really good recipe for Cranberry White Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies if you're interested. You could of course add walnuts if you wanted. Hope this helps! http://stickafork.net/2011/11/30/cranberrry-white-chocolate-oatmeal-cookies/

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  4. This happened to me when I used baking soda in a bread recipe recently. The after taste was GROSS! I don't have an explanation except that maybe you have be sure to mix it in really really well and make sure to use the exact measurement. Let me know if you find out the issue- I want to try my bread again!

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  5. I'm sure the culprit is the baking soda. It's a leavening agent when mixed with an acid which I'm assuming, in this case, is the sour cherries. It still seems like an awful lot of it, though, for a product that doesn't need to rise that much. If you look on the box of baking soda at the sodium level, you'll see that it's nearly a gram per teaspoon. Because the recipe calls for so much of it I would imagine it would taste lousy. I'd remake the recipe (since you liked it) with a teaspoon of baking powder instead.

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    1. Thanks Anita! Yeah I will probably try it again with less. I thought it was alot too. Every recipe I try usually has 1 tsp.

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