Missing Ingredient
My incisors crunch through a slight crisp exterior on their way to a chewy, mint-chocolaty middle.
I stop am stop a stop sucker stop for stop sweets!
Peeking through a cracked oven door, I wondered who’d consume the treats baking on well worn pastry sheets—humans or the trash can. You see, I punted with the recipe….
“Where’s the cocoa?” I asked while scanning the pantry shelves.
“Didn’t you use it up when you made frosting for the chocolate cake?” came a voice from behind.
“Did I?” I asked. “I must have—shoot! Here I am mid-recipe without a main ingredient—and I was just at the store! Oh well….”
“I’m going to mow my parent’s side hill—want me to stop for cocoa?”
“No, thanks. I’ll figure it out. The oven’s already preheated and I don’t want to wait.”
Substitutes for cocoa powder….carob, flour with melted dark or semi-sweet chocolate—don’t use hot cocoa drink mix!
Thanks, but no thanks internet. What is carob and why would I have it anyhow? Never mind, I’ve got cookies to bake….
I dumped in an additional 1/3 cup flour to the already creamed butter, sugar, vanilla, baking soda and egg. Next, I swung open the stainless door, pulled out the brown Hershey’s squirt bottle and squeezed a generous puddle of cocoa enhanced corn syrup into the mix. After the hand mixer’s whirring blades stirred things up, the batter was still pale—like traditional chocolate chip cookies dough, not the chocolate, chocolate mint-chip I was working toward, so I added another small puddle of sauce to the batter.
Looking good…..
Uneven dollops dotted my cookie sheets, three across by five vertical. Into the oven. Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock, tick…
Hmmm….flat and raw in their middles.
Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock, tick…
A few minutes more….even flatter and getting brown. Is the center set? Was my substitution flip a flop?
Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock, tick…
These babies gotta come out before the bottoms become charcoal….
On my first attempt with the spatula, the wafers were too mushy to move to a cooling rack.
Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock, tick…
A couple of minutes later, sweet success! Even sweeter taste.
Maybe I should make them this way every time?
Did you know some of the greatest inventions started out as mistakes or substitutions?
Do not be too timid and squeamish. All of life is an experiment. The more experiments, the better. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson