Cookie O'Fail

I have been working on a particular piece of writing for a few days now.  It is a tough tale of abuse and redemption, grace and God.  A story that is all the more powerful because it is real.  It actually happened to a friend of mine.  I hope to share it with you next week.

As I have been writing, I have been thinking, I would like a cookie.  Not only do I want to eat one, but I want to make one.  Today, after honing several lines, I decided to take a break and bake.

I have wanted to try out a new recipe I have been working on for some days, a chocolate cherry salt sprinkled cookie.  Delicious I hear you think.  Yes, it is a really great dough mixture, and it tasted awesome, with exactly the right balance of sweet and sour, chewiness and crunch (I use wholemeal flour), with a great chocolate flavour from the large choco chips, the chunky cherries adding a certain chewiness and jelly fruit.

Into the oven they went, looking high and might, warrior cookies.  I had visions of serving them as a new recipe to friends at a BBQ this evening.  I then sat down to rework another line of text.

Cookies normally bake for 8mins in our aga.  8 minutes later I had burnt crunchy edges, dried out chocolate chips and cookies that turned to rock flying saucers, when they cooled.  First photo.

In went the second batch which I watched more carefully.  Instead of burning, they oozed into each other, to create two lines of grand cookie.  Cutting them with a knife, and squashing them into rough circles, when they cooled, they were chewy with a light crunch and a deep chocolately taste.  The chocolate and the cherries perfectly complimenting each other, adding depth to the flavour.

But they were far, from perfect.  In fact they weren't even perfect's 10th cousin.  They were failures.  The first batch because they burnt, as the aga had been turned up and no one told me. The second because I hadn't spaced them properly.  And, the salt, well it was just downright discusting.  I really am not getting this craze for putting salt on everything sweet at the moment.

Why may you ask have I chosen to share cookie o'fail?  Especially when anywhere on the web you can get a selection of brilliant cookie recipes with perfect photographs?

I share because it's important to realise a the perfection of the blogsphere, that sometimes, things just don't work.  Cookies burn, they turn to muss, cookers get turned up and no one tells you. Life goes wrong, but life goes on.  Instead of focusing on the fail, I think about what went wrong, and how I can fix it for next time.  I ponder what would make it better. 

DON'T FOCUS ON THE FAIL, FOCUS ON THE FORWARD!

As a food writer, I constantly strive for as close to perfection as possible with the recipes that I share with you. I want you to get the enjoyment out of creating them, as I get from the creation process - both of the recipe and the actual food.  Therefore plenty of my recipes go wrong before they go right.  In fact the recipes that I share with you are often recipes that have been worked, and reworked several times, until I am happy with them.  Content you will be too when you have a go.

Today I take a risk in sharing my cookie o'fail with you and I hope you won't judge me too harshly.

Why don't you join us in the comments or over at Lisa Jo's Five Minute Friday to talk about a risk you have taken...

Watch this space for a great recipe coming soon for choco cherry cookies - I will get it right.

Have a great weekend.

That's it for now ...

Nics

Salt and Sparkle = Life Remarkable