OT needing a Cookie Monster

Hi Polly, even SC's humidity sometimes messes up the best of recipes! The humidity has been high the past week. Takes a long time for clothes to dry outside. Barbara in SC

Let's see, toasted walnuts, sweet, sticky gooey, 'handful of pecan pie' -- Polly, just what is the problem?

Sunny drooling

Heavens! There are so many things that could do that! Could be you used bigger eggs than whoever wrote the recipe. Could be you used an all purpose flour that had more gluten. Could be your oven runs a couple of degrees cooler than theirs. Could be Yogi turned around three times and sighed under the table. I have had recipes I've done a hundred times come out wonky for no particular reason. You chalk it up to barometric pressure, humidity, and Baba Yaga, then try it again next week.

I recently needed a break from sewing so I baked. I was going to just do cream puffs. Then I got "Oh! but that takes so many eggs!", and "Oh! but I love cream puffs and I am trying to lose weight!" from my family. So I took a snit, made some puff paste too, and put it all together into one of these:

It looks fancier than it is. In reality it is just a few cream puffs glued to the outside edge of a circle of puff paste with a little caramelized sugar, and the middle filled with the same cream you used to fill the cream puffs.

I was standing by, ready to pace circles around my family, asperging them with melted butter, and shouting "By the power of Rachel Ray I compel you!" Fortunately that extreme step proved unnecessary.

NightMist

Still trying to imagine blanching and slicing walnuts - almonds, yes; walnuts, no.......must be a Southern thing? jennellh

One of the reasons I always look askance at recipes that call for preprepared mixes is because they are different brand to brand. In the line of biscuits, my mum uses Jiffy mix, and my Aunt J, her sister, uses Bisquick. They swap recipes using mix back and forth. The ones my mom send to Aunt J inevitably come out sloppy for her, the ones she sends to mom come out overly dry. Neither one of them has enough sense to just use a little more or less liquid or mix when they get a recipe from the other. If Polly's recipe just called for mix without specifying exactly what manner of mix, well then obviously the recipe is going to take a little experimenting with to work with what she uses. If it did specify, and she used just exactly that, well then we are back to barometric pressure, an electric oven versus a gas one, or Baba Yaga.

NightMist th> Could the biscuit mix be dead or maybe not mixed up enough? Taria

I made a whole batch of cookies one time and realized when they were in the oven that I had left out half the flour. They were drop cookies and they were pouring off the spoon. I figured they'd "set up" as they baked.

They didn't.

Cindy

Sunny....you are SO funny! (but I agree with you!) Donna

Well, heck, they still sound so good...anything that resembles pecan pie can't be bad. Hand everyone a spoon and tell them to dig in! Donna

The rest of the story - we had 3 university grandchildren graduate today and a crawfish boil to celebrate. Celebrate we did. Hungry young folks with crawfish dripping off their elbows apparently don't mind if the cookies are sticky. What a happy day. Polly

No, Jennifer. It was the nice cooks who wrote 'Joy of Cooking' that recommended blanching and toasting the walnuts, not a southern thing. I don't even think we can grow walnuts around here. I felt fairly goofy dipping a basket of walnuts into a pot of boiling water, drying them looked fairly ridiculous too. Toasting pecans just a little before using them for baking is standard procedure here; it gives the dish just a little edge. If we're going to enjoy 'bad for you food', we want 'em really, really great. Polly

Aha. And there we have it. It just could be that a different baking mix would have not been quite so gooey. Or not. There are 249 more cookie recipes to try; I'll just bypass the 'mix' ones. Polly

"NightMist" One of the reasons I always look askance at recipes that call for

That is wonderful!!! A wedding and now this big celebration. You all sound like you do that very fine. Congratulations to you. Happy day indeed. Hugs, Taria

Cindy, I did something similar with a quickbread once, leaving out half the flour. Got part way through baking, yanked it out of the oven, then tried to remdy it. In the end, the baked mess, that did not resemble the quick bread, made a good topping for frozen yoghurt ;)

G>

Sounds like everyone had a great time, Polly and the food sounds yummy!

-Irene

An ILL humid day isnt very good for baking an angel food birthday cake either-- Rather flat and funny looking. Was for a quilting friend and just added more of the cool-whip and strawberry (frosting) all over it and made my own "shape". :)

Im sure the cookies were great!!!!

lyn

THREE graduates this time around? Congratulations to the scholars and to the families. Pat, humming Pomp & Circumstance, in Virginia