This post contains a recipe for failure. I wanted to make you something amazing, but things didn’t work out. I was going to skip posting it all together, but then I decided that it would be better for me to keep it real by talking about my kitchen mistakes.
This very morning, I was chuckling because world-renowned baker Dorie Greenspan posted this photo on instagram:
I love the part when David Lebovitz comments about his aversion to cutting parchment circles. These are some of the most accomplished bakers in the world and they still ruin brownies from time to time. Famous Chefs, they are just like us!
In the past week, I’ve struggled in the kitchen. I’m still adjusting to a new rental apartment with new rental appliances. I’ve discovered that my oven runs hot as Hades. It must be 50F over. I learned this the hard way. I baked two cakes (from Dorie Greenspan’s cookbook!) and they were both overcooked. Luckily, I had the foresight to check on them before they burned. I cried a bit over the second cake (flourless chocolate cake with black sesame seeds). Chris had to talk me out of throwing it in the garbage in frustration. I ended up serving it to guests and it got rave reviews. It wasn’t perfect but it sure was delicious.
I joke about throwing a cake in the garbage, but I wouldn’t do that unless it was inedible. Instead, I’m forced to eat my failures. There is an inelegant metaphor here. Eat your failures, let them fill your belly and energize you. Let the indigestible parts pass through your body and flush them away.
This week, I had grand plans. I was going to make some adorable heart shaped cookie dough bites. They were going to be dipped in chocolate and served on a platter just in time for the Valentine’s Day season on Pinterest. They would be adorable click-bait. They were going to be vegan and gluten-free and perfect. Everyone was going to love them and I was going to be a star.
Ha! Well, that didn’t happen. Instead, I made the super random fail cookies pictured above. Here is the recipe:
Step 1:
Go to the store and spend a million dollars on macadamia nuts and chocolate.
Step 2:
Put a million dollars worth of macadamia nuts (2 cups) in the blender with 2 cups of unsweetened coconut, 6 tbsp of coconut oil, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/2 cup coconut sugar and 1/4 tsp vanilla.
Step 3:
Mix on high-speed until everything is a suspiciously liquid-y liquid. Second guess yourself.
Step 4:
Pour the liquid in a bowl and stick it in the fridge to set for 1.5 hours while you question your life choices.
Step 5:
Take the bowl out of the fridge and stir in some mini chocolate chips. Awesome, it looks like cookie dough!
Step 6:
Decide you are too lazy to try to make heart shaped cookie dough bites. You will make balls instead. Pick up a tbsp of dough and roll it in your hand. As you roll them, exclaim “Jumping Jehoshaphat! There is way to much coconut oil in this batter!”.
Step 7:
Glare at the bowl.
Step 8:
Accept that this whole raw-vegan-cookie-dough-bite thing is a sham. You should have just made cookies.
Step 9:
Decide to make cookies!
Step 10:
Make oatflour in your Vitamix for the first time ever. Whoo hoo, you did something new! You are a champ!
Step 11:
Add 1 cup of oat flour and 1/4 tsp of baking powder to your weird raw cookie dough.
Step 12:
Test bake 2 blobs at 300F because your oven is stupid and 350F would incinerate them.
Lucky Number Step 13:
Oh, those look like cookies. This might just work…
…just kidding these will fall in to a zillion pieces when you try to pick them up.
Step 14:
Add a bunch of coconut to the batter (1.5 cups), because you haven’t wasted enough ingredients today!
Step 15:
Put them in the oven, turn on some hip tunes (see below) and dance until they are done.
Step 16:
Could it be? They actually look like cookies! But how do they taste?
They taste like a million bucks worth of high-quality ingredients resurrected from kitchen experiment purgatory. They taste like failure and it tastes good!
-Jasmine
