This is the last week. After this, there will be no more eggy lemon bars, pull-your-filling-out cookies, or too much butter everything. But before I get too excited, I have to finish my pathetic cookies. They look like deflated, sad sacks of depression, and I’d like to fix that. Hopefully cutting down on the butter should help, and I also want to try putting them in the freezer to help them retain some sort of cookies shape. I’m slowly building my presentation, and the sources slide is LONG. MyBib has definitely come to the rescue with that. Other than that, I plan on bringing in some zucchini bread for the class to eat while I present. Hopefully I will convince people that zucchini does belong in sweet bread. I did read something though that should help the bread be even more moist. By pouring a simple syrup over it the night before, hopefully it should be even better than it was. While I was writing this, I just noticed something. The website URL is COOKINGwithoutarecipe. How? Why? It’s literally the final week and my website link isn’t even indicative of my project. I’m not changing it. The cookies are back. I cut down on the butter, again, and they turned out much better. I also added another egg to fix with the loss of moisture, and because of this, they set up fast before they could spread, so they are a little bulbous. The flavor is about the same, as they taste like sugar cookies with chocolate chips. Not ideal but they are definitely edible. To add on for this week, I did a mini-bakeoff with my dearly beloved Spencer Melton. Zucchini bread vs. pumpkin bread. We rated each other based on three categories, and the specifics are on my slide presentation. Overall Spencer won, deservedly so. Considering the logistics of my slide presentation, I am completely done, and ready to present. I know this sounds terrible, but I'm glad this project is over. I got a little burned out after weeks of failing, and the moments of triumph were few and far between. I am glad, however, that I get to end this project on a high, with my cookie redemption arc.
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Last week was very successful for my project, as I now have a decent lemon bar recipe. It didn't have the texture of scrambled eggs, the shortbread was good, and it set up nicely. Looking back at it though, I noticed how some lemon bar recipes use a graham cracker based crust, which sounds much better than shortbread. Maybe I will try that this week. Besides that, I was planning on trying again with the cookies. They were ok, but there is always room for improvement (especially in this situation). They still spread a little too thin, so I might need to add more leavening. They were also pretty chewy around the edges, which some people like, but I want to try and fix that. As this project starts coming to an end, I have also started on my presentation. I added a butter graph to show the absurdity of how much I apparently love butter... so that's fun. Something came up over the weekend, and I wasn't able to make my cookies. This was mostly ok, however, as it gave me even more time work on my presentation and figure out how to fix my cookies. I think the main culprit is butter, because of course it is. Too much butter can cause the spreading, and the chewiness. But now I at least know what the problem is. Also, I get to add more data points to my butter graph! This hasn't really set me back that much, as I can just make it up next week. Hopefully, just one more batch of cookies and I'm done.
Last week, I had a mild success with my lemon bars, but they didn't set up the way I wanted them too. The taste was pretty good, a little sour, but that's an easy fix. The shortbread was good, which is a huge improvement from the oiling mess that was week 8. This week, I plan on increasing the amount of flour, to hopefully let them set up better, as well as add more sugar to combat the sourness. Changing a couple small things each week has honestly gotten quite annoying, knowing I'm so close, and I have to make a whole new batch just to get it right. I also hate how much food I am wasting, as some of the things come out inedible and I just end up throwing them away. I've also started working on my presentation, and I have the layout complete. This week is my second big success of the project. They set up much better, and the flavor is more balanced. The shortbread was good, just like last week, and the average score was a 9/10. I still think my favorite recipe is the zucchini bread, and that's what I plan to bring to school. It is nice to know a quick-ish recipe that tastes good, though. Next week, I want to work more on the cookies, and I'm not looking forward to it. My motivation for this project is slowly dropping, but the cookie redemption arc is the final piece. I haven't worked much on the presentation since the first half of this blog post, so I might dedicate week 12 to working on the presentation. This will only give me one week to fix my cookies, so that will be interesting. Overall, I am pretty happy with how my project is wrapping up, and I would honestly be happy if it ended here. (It also looks like I put a pound of powdered sugar on the lemon bar in the photo, but I promise, I did.)
Last week could have gone better. The top of the scrambled eggs, I mean lemon bars were fluffy. Not exactly what I was aiming for in a custardy dessert. Under that tasted good, but was way undercooked. The shortbread was on a whole new level of bad, as it was extremely greasy, and fell apart in your mouth. This week, I want to cut down on the eggs in an attempt to make it less scrambled eggy, as well as whip is less. I also want to get rid of half of the butter in the shortbread. Cooking it longer will also help with the texture, and make it easier to remove from the pan. I'm also looking forward to continuing my cookie recipe after I'm done with lemon bars. This weeks lemon bars were much more successful than the previous. First of all, the shortbread was so much better. I halved the butter, and cut down on the sugar. This was actually one of the best parts of the final product. I pre-baked before putting the lemon on it. This was to ensure it wouldn't get soggy. The lemon part was a little sour, and still underbaked, just like last week. The foaminess on top was gone because I let it sit after mixing the lemony concoction. The rating was a 7/10, which is a huge improvement from last week, considering nobody even tried it because they were so grossed out by the whole scrambled egg thing. Next week, I want to cook it longer, and put more sugar in it. After that, I want to go back to the cookies, which were left at a place I'm not happy with.
I have been going back and forth on what to make this week, but I think I know what I'm doing now. I wanted something balanced, maybe tart, and something fresh. I decided on going with lemon bars, not only because I like the flavor and texture, but I think it will be a nice challenge. All of the recipes before this were only one element, lemon bars have two. It's almost like I'm developing two separate recipes, the lemon part, and the shortbread. I have some prior knowledge on the shortbread, as I have made it before, but I know nothing about the actual lemon part. I think egg-based is the the way to go, mostly because I don't know of any other way it could have that texture. I'm going in completely blind, and hopefully it will turn out just as successful as the zucchini bread. I did it again. I ended up using way too much butter in the shortbread. What's sad is that the shortbread was the part I was confident about. I baked it before putting the lemony liquid on top, and for some reason it rose. This is really confusing to me because I used all purpose flour, which shouldn't have any leavening agents. The lemon part had good flavor, but it wasn't the right texture. It had the texture of scrambled eggs, but tasted like lemon. It looked frothy on top, which I think is from me over whipping it. It was greasy, and overall pretty bad. The average score was 4/10. Next week I want to use less eggs, and whip it less.
Last week was very successful. I am genuinely surprised about how lucky I got with the first recipe. When I started this project, I wasn’t planning on having a great final product, and I might be biased, but I think I am doing a pretty good job with the zucchini bread. The cookies, not so much. I’m going to try to improve it by adding more zucchini, completely take out the nutmeg, and maybe cut back on the cinnamon. I also want to add pecans, because it isn’t a quick bread without nuts. The bread was pretty moist, but I wanted it more so, and adding the zucchini will aid in that. When I finalize the recipe, and hopefully bring some into school, I’m not sure what I want to do next. I was going to do something way more complicated, like eclairs or cream puffs, but I’m just not enthusiastic about those things. I’m not a dessert person, which is why I love zucchini bread, it’s very balanced. I want to do something in the same realm of non-conventional, not super sweet, but it needs to be different enough that it will be challenging. Maybe something with citrus, like key lime pie? Maybe rice pudding? After increasing the oil, zucchini, and getting rid of the nutmeg, I made some incredible zucchini bread. It was extremely moist, and had a good taste. I didn't have any cinnamon, so I used pumpkin pie spice instead, and I'm glad I did. I added pecans this time, and it made it even better. The average score was 9/10, which compared to last week's 6/10, is a huge improvement. I'm still not sure on what I want to do next week, but I'll figure it out before Sunday. I am completely overjoyed that I have fueled my obsession for zucchini bread this week, and will probably continue to use this recipe.
I did a little research on last week’s baking endeavor, and the problem was butter. The cookies were good, but very flat. This is because butter melts, and the cookies spread, making them flat. Once again, I was bested by butter, but I am now moving on to zucchini bread. Zucchini bread is probably my favorite desert, which is strange, but I do not care it’s delicious. It’s moist, uses fresh produce, and I love pecans in it. Going back to butter, I know these kinds of recipes normally have a large proportion of butter because they have to stay moist. I have had some that use oil instead, so I don’t know which way I will go. I used to make banana bread quite often, and they are pretty similar, so I have a bigger advantage over this than cookies. I’m also going to enjoy it more because I have an unhealthy obsession to zucchini bread that I try to justify by saying “but it has vegetables in it.” Concerning the logistics of my delicious endeavor, I’m going to make two batches of zucchini bread so I can stay on track to make 3 recipes by the end. I would even be willing to give zucchini bread an extra week if needed. I think I need an intervention. I am honestly extremely proud of what I made. I didn't think that it would have turned out as good as it did. I was planning on giving zucchini bread 4 weeks, but I might be able to do it in just 2. The bread was moist, flavorful, and just sweet enough. By flavorful, I mean an overload of nutmeg and cinnamon, but other than that, it turned out really well. Next week, I want to cut down on the cinnamon, nutmeg, and I want to increase the zucchini a lot. The zucchini will add more moistness, which should improve the overall product. I also want to add pecans, because no quick bread is complete without nuts. I didn't add them this week because I'm cheap.
Last week, I made cookies, which I burnt. They didn’t taste that bad, I was a little dramatic in the last blog post. They were black on the bottom, and my taste testers refused to eat them, so I couldn’t get a score. This week, I really want to try cookies one more time, but I have to move on to another baked good. I’m planning on doing both cookies, and something else, but I’m not sure what that something else will be. I was going to do cake, but cake is a little basic. My favorite baked good is zucchini bread, so I think I might do that instead. My family has a garden, and we always have tons of zucchini, so it would be useful to have a recipe that’ll use up our produce. We always end up giving most of it away, so this will be a good use for it. I finally have a cookie that I am proud of. I tweaked quite a few things, like reducing the butter EVEN more, and made the brown sugar more prominent in the sugar ratio. This was a little risky considering I wanted to keep everything the same, just not cookie it to smithereens, but I'm glad I did it. The cookies were the perfect consistency, and they tasted great. They look terrible, but their appearance isn’t a fair representation of the flavor. I maybe could have cut down on the vanilla, but the average score was an 8/10. A huge improvement from last time, which was a 0/10 via omission. Concerning the zucchini bread, I was planing on doing it today, Sunday, but I didn't have time to get the zucchini, which is a big deal. I decided to postpone the bread until Wednesday, when I will actually have the ingredients I need. This isn't a big problem though, I will still be on track to complete three recipes over the 12 week period. I will post about my zucchini endeavors on next week's blog.
Last week was less of a disaster than the prior so, I think that’s a good thing. My rating went up from 4/10 to 5/10, which is still bad, but it’s improvement. I’m not sure if I want to try again, or make an actual recipe and compare. I do want to move on to bigger things, but perfecting the cookie would be cool as well. My next baked good will be cake, which I know for a fact has a proportion, which will make the development process so much easier. Cookie proportions really depend on what kind you are making, and what you want the texture to be. Cake is pretty universal. I decided on going with cookies for one more week. This was my last try, and I flubbed it up. I let them cook for too long, and they burnt. I didn't change the cooking time much from last week, so I guess I changed the ingredients a lot. I added baking soda, which was to make it not so chewy, and I cut down on the butter even more. They definitely weren't chewy, as they instead were black and tasted like rocks. Next week, I want to start cake. I'm going to go in completely blind, and see how it turns out.
' What I learned from last weeks absolute mess of a cookie was that I just need to pull back on everything, especially butter. Every person said that the cookies were too salty, which was strange to me because I hadn't put much salt in them at all. My dearest father then informed me that I had used salted butter, which explains the cookies tasting like the ocean. There was also too much vanilla, which made the cookies have an off flavor. Instead of a subtle hint of warm vanilla, it tasted like a truck full of extract hit you in the face. Butter was the main problem, not only because of the saltiness, but also because of the spreading and chewiness. My dad is quite a good baker, and he told me that too much butter will make the cookies chewy, and it also explains the spreading in the oven. The next batch I want to make will have less of everything. Less salt, vanilla, and definitely less butter. I also want to try using brown sugar because that's supposed to make the cookie softer, and taste richer. As you can see in the picture above, somebody liked the cookies. This week, I lowered the amount of butter, eggs, vanilla, and salt. This led to a better texture that looked similar to cookie dough you might find in the grocery store. I still think I have too much butter however, because the dough was very oily, and the final product was very chewy, like undercooked candy. The edges got very crunchy, and were basically concentrated sugar. The average rating from my family was a 5/10. This is an improvement from last week, but still is garbage. This week, I will do some research to find out why they are still chewy, because it can't be the butter at this point.
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About Me:I am a Sophomore at Davie County High School, and I hate baking. I chose this not because I want to torture myself, but hopefully to learn more about it, as baking (and cooking) are very important life skills to have. Will I have a mental breakdown? Probably not. Will I suck at it? Probably, but hopefully I will get better at it as time progresses, which is the whole purpose of Genius Hour. |