adventure in baking

Today, I decided that I was bored enough to bake something and so I pulled up my favorite food blog, SmittenKitchen.com, and found the recipe for "World Peace" cookies, which I've been meaning to try out ever since I had fabulous results with the last cookie I made from a recipe from that site called the Margarita Cookie. YUM! About half-way through making the dough, I realized that this was bound to be an epic baking failure, and decided to document it, just in case it actually DID work out and then I could say that I'm an awesome baker-type person. However, the only thing I'm apparently talented at baking is my semi-famous tea biscuits and I've come to realize that the name of the cookies - "World Peace" Cookies - is a complete lie because I felt anything BUT peaceful while I was baking them today.
So, the dough, as seen in the photo above, doesn't look exactly like it should. For example, the dough shouldn't have looked like a clump of dirt in my hand.

Above, a slightly blurry photo of the dirt clods when I put them in the fridge to cool for three hours.
I used the timer function on my iPod to count down the three hours that I had to leave it in the fridge. At around this time, I opened the fridge to feel how packed the dirt logs were, and they felt like they may actually work and stick together like they should. However, when three hours passed and I opened up rolled packs to start slicing the logs into cookies, this is what happened:
Not fun. More dirt-like than before. However I managed to squeeze 11 into a semi-cookie shape much like the way coal gets pressured into becoming a diamond. I sat at the oven door for 12 minutes, watching them bake, making sure that nothing started smoking.
They turned out OK. Very chocolately and crumbly. As I was holding my cookie, trying to eat it, it kept falling apart in my hands. As seen below, I was trying to take a picture of it, and just managed to before it dropped onto the table.

Knowing what an epic failure these cookies were going to be, I also made garlic tea biscuits to make up for it, and to make myself feel better about my cooking skills. I ate 4 while they were cooling after coming out of the oven.



To attempt the World Peace Cookies on your own, swing by smittenkitchen.com for more details and awesome recipes, including the Margarita Cookie recipe.