Solo Mission: Chocolate Snickerdoodle Cookies - July 27, 2010

Well, I have not baked in a while. I am enrolled in a business certificate program at a local college, and my focus lately has been on classwork. The other day I discovered I had some free time and I was itching to flex my baking muscles once again. Cookies would be easiest, I thought, so I grabbed Vegan Cookies Invade your Cookie Jar and started flipping through, skimming to find one calling for ingredients I had on hand.

When I got to the Mexican Hot Chocolate Snickerdoodles, I saw I was lacking only the chocolate extract and the cayenne pepper. Now, I am not a fan of spicy things, and would normally avoid anything “Mexican chocolate.” But I was making the treat and figured I would simply adapt the recipe to taste (and ingredients on hand) and make Chocolate Snickerdoodles minus the “Mexican.” After all, I do like chocolate.

I pulled out all the ingredients, and preheated the oven. I mixed sugar and cinnamon for the topping, and set it aside, next to my parchment paper covered cookie sheets.

Measuring the wet ingredients I was dismayed to find that I had less maple syrup than the recipe called for, and wondered what I should do to make up the missing volume, if anything. Since I am still relatively new to baking I wasn’t sure what could be an appropriate substitute, and I looked through my pantry for ideas. Shuffling aside the peanut butter, I was thrilled to find a small, personal serving size jar (1.7 oz) of Pure Maple Syrup that I had squirreled away from a pancake breakfast ordered on vacation at a resort months ago. It’s probably not a great thing that my hoarding tenancies were justified, but I was grateful for the find.

I went back to measuring. In lieu of the chocolate extract I used extra vanilla extract, as noted in the recipe. I do have to admit, though, when I first read the ingredient list, I thought “Chocolate extract? Such a thing exists?” I look forward to finding this, and adding it to my pantry.

Since I was leaving out the cayenne pepper, I toyed with the idea of finding a different spice to add to the batter, but my culinary skills (and stocked kitchen) are still nascent I did not feel comfortable making a decision of an alternate spice. I briefly pondered cloves or nutmeg - all my other spices are more savory in nature, which, in my mind, eliminated them from contention. Now that I think on it, I would have been replacing a pepper, so perhaps I should rethink that hard-line mental distinction. Rather than chance ruining the cookies, I ended up using a generously heaping teaspoon of cinnamon instead of a carefully measured one.

the dough was easy to work with

I mixed the ingredients, and was pleased with how easy the dough was to work with. As the recipe promised, the flattened cookies stuck nicely to my fingers after pressing them into the sugary topping, making for easy transition to the cookie sheet. I did discover that this trick only works after you press the cookies - if you stop after, to take a picture, for example, the cookies lose that damp stickiness and you need to find another way to move them (let’s just say my butter knife served me well).

With regards to the cinnamon and sugar topping, I found that what the recipe called for was more than enough. I ended up saving the unused portion - almost half of the mix.

cinnamon and sugar topping

onto the cookie sheet

I put the first sheet of cookies in the oven and began to clean up. I started the timer with 8 minutes (the recipe calls for 10-12, but I wanted a chance to check the progress and decide whether to give it the full time). With 3 minutes left on the timer, my cat noticed a bird that had gotten trapped on our back patio. I went out on a quick rescue operation, and when I came in, the timer was beeping - I wasn’t sure if it had just started, or had been going a while. I went ahead and added another 2 minutes to the timer.

unbaked cookies

The second batch of cookies went in for a more precisely measured (that is uninterrupted) 10 minutes. Even warm, the cookies were a bit crisp on the outside, but softer in the middle.

I shared the cookies with some of my spice-loving friends and though they liked them, the vote is they would be better with the cayenne. I have had cookies for breakfast the past couple of days and noticed two things 1) like with most of the recipes we’ve tried, they taste better a day after baking and  2) they are a little bit oily - I carried them to work this morning wrapped in a paper towel, which soaked up oil during the 20 minute drive.

I have a few ideas for the next time I make these cookies. I may bake a batch for 8 minutes, and see if I can get a softer cookie. I may try to find a substitute for some of the oil, or reduce the amount the recipe calls for by a bit. Finally, I may get brave, have a glass of milk on hand to help defray the heat of the spice, and actually add the cayenne pepper.

All in all though, I think this was a good cookie.  

Delicious

New tools / ingredients: (chocolate extract / Cayenne powder)
Recipe used: Mexican Hot Chocolate Snickerdoodle - Vegan Cookies Invade your Cookie Jar
Co-baker: Solo-Mission
Date: July 27, 2010