Detour today

I'd half planned to do more cookie experiments today but after we determined that my retina was possibly detaching I forgot all about them.

I'll go to Ventura tomorrow and help Nate roast almonds and make the almond butter needed for this week's farmers markets. Maybe I'll bring home some more mistake product.

Maybe Wed. I'll make just a few more batches of cookies to test using different amounts of meal, then I need to send them out for more taste testing.

Cookies off for the taste testing

I ggot up early and baked two types of cookies to be taste tested at the AAUW meeting. Then I still needed to make up some questionnaire sheets and business cards.

My very top of the line Epson photo printer started giving me trouble last spring and this time was no different. The printer printed one sheet of business cards, all misaligned then quit printing on heavy paper. It would only print on plain paper, so remaining business cards were printed on plain paper. Impressive I’m sure.

I also had to make up a questionnaire with some questions that I was interested in. I’m especially interested in whether people would buy these cookies.

I heard today that the cookies were a hit with the group and one woman took the remaining cookies to a management meeting this morning for more testing.

I’m anxious to read the remarks. Hope that they are not too severe.

Another day, 21 variations

I knew when I woke up in the morning that I’d be baking, I just didn’t know that I’d bake from about 9:30 a.m. until 4:30 pm with a little break in between to buy some butter.

I’d picked up more almond meal from Nate last night but didn’t realize until this morning that it is much different from the mistake meal that Nate made originally. This meal is like the meal should be and I knew that I would need to work with this meal eventually, I just didn’t think that it would be today.

I thought that I’d better make a batch of cookies using the meal in the same proportaions as cookies I’d made before and just see how it turned out. They were different. I’d realized pretty quickly that there were going to be quite a few variations so called Dolly, my trusty friend, and told her that I really, really needed her today. She agreed to come in by late afternoon and help me taste test all these cookies.

I got to work: I donned a scarf in lieu of a hairnet, found an apron that Clayton had brought home from a restaurant he’d worked at. It had a large pocket in front that I could stuff a towel in. To work I went making some with more butter, some with less meal. Also I divided each particular batch by minutes baked. There were about 21 different variations by the time everything was finished.

Now we have determined which cookies we like best. I’ll bake those in the morning and deliver them for the AAUW meeting.

It’s a start.

As Usual Another Crazy Day

Dale was working today, girls sleeping; I got up and started some almond breakfast bars, for lack of a better name. These are made with very little butter, some honey, brown sugar and almond meal of course. I put dried blueberries, cherries, cranberries and raisins in them. ½ were put into the pan then I added some Belgium chocolate that I’d tried to chop but turned to mush, into the other 1/2.

The bars turned out quite good. They are not pretty but taste pretty good.

This afternoon I got a call from a friend saying that one of the people who tasted the Almond Butter Cookies wanted me to make a bunch of cookies for some meeting that she was hosting. Later I heard from the woman, a person I know mostly from other people but we do know each other as well. She is hosting an event for AAUW (University Women) for about 20 people and wants to serve my cookies at the event. She will even gather tasting notes for me.

I called Nate, I have about 2 tablespoons of almond butter and only a couple of cups of meal, hardly enough for many cookies. As it turned out Nate and Bekki would be taking Bekki’s brother to LAX tonight as he will be flying to China in the morning. Furthermore, Ryan (Bekki’s brother) needed a document located at his parents’ home north of us. Instead of his mom taking the docs down to L.A. I volunteered to go so that I could also pick up more butter and meal from Nate.

I’m home now, having driven about 2-1/2 hours, but now I can bake some cookies in the morning. I think that the Almond Butter Chocolate Chip cookies I made yesterday are not holding up well and need a couple of tweaks before testing.

For now I’ll finish up my wine and get this posted.

Ideas gone array

I was all ready to kick it into high gear and get a couple of recipe variations baked today. I bought a Belgium chocolate bar to chop into chunks for my upscale cookies also. We were going to get it done.

1^st tried to chop up the chocolate bar but only ground it up fine. Opps didn’t mean to do that! Next made a batch of the Almond Butter Chocolate Chip cookies and they were fine. Then made a variation of the Almond Butter cookies but as I took them off the rack I knew something was very wrong. Just touching a cookie would cause it to crush into meal. Then I knew: I’d forgotten to add an egg. YIKES. And I had more in the oven. Well we ended up throwing the entire batch away.

I then started making another batch of Almond Butter cookies but as I was adding the Almond meal I hit the measuring cup on something and meal went everywhere. Twinkle came running in looking for treats and she found lots on the floor. I forgot how much meal I’d put into the mixing bowl so just put in what I thought was right. Cookies turned out good but I’m not sure of measurements so have to start over.

I’d planned to send out more cookies soon but now found that I’m out of almond butter and nearly out of meal. Best laid plans.

More Cookie Experiments

As I was going to leave Nate’s last Sunday night he asked if I’d like some Almond Butter to experiment with. Of course I said sure.

I gave this quite a bit of thought and remembered as a kid I would make Peanut Butter Cookies for a boy in my class. I was probably about 12 years old at when I made these cookies for the boy, he was just a friend but loved them and as I loved to bake by that age I would make them for him. I also won a 1^st prize for the cookies sometime around then for some little contest in the neighborhood where I lived.

Yesterday I thought that I’d get in gear and start making some cookies. My friend Dolly was coming over so this was a good time to experiment anyway. I made some cookies using my recipe as a base then decided to make some Almond Butter cookies that I could eat. As I was baking them I thought that it would be fun to do a taste test comparison between the gluten free and those using the traditional recipe. Dolly is passing out cookies from each batch to see what people like, if they can tell the difference.

Nate had called and said he would be by tonight so I thought I’d make some traditional style for him to take as well. By 11pm when I finally had mixed the cookies I realized that I’d not used wheat flour but rather almond meal. I was so upset but then the thought passed my mind that sometimes good things come from mistakes. I looked around to see what I could add to my mistake and saw some chocolate chips. I added the chips, threw the cookies in the oven and out came some of the best cookies I’ve ever had, if I must say so myself.

Now we are on to something!

What a weekend

I’d agreed to bake a cake for Taylor and her brother Jakob’s birthday party on Sunday. These years the kids like to decorate their own cakes and have definite ideas on what they want. So on Sat. I baked 2 round cakes, one for Taylor and one for Jakob and put a basic icing on. Taylor would decorate her own cake and Sunny decided to decorate Jakob’s.

On Sunday Nate and Bekki were coming for dinner so I thought that I’d better get some cookies and bars ready for them to taste test. I wanted to bake several variations on the cookie that I’d developed the other day and send out samples for taste testing so this would work out well.

Before I started baking on Sunday I remembered my grandmother’s chocolate chip cookie recipe and thought that I’d do a cookie based on her recipe. I then baked the one like I developed the other day and 3 variations on it. As I was baking the cookies the girls started decorating their cakes so I’d run between the kitchen with the cookies and the dining room with the girls and their cakes. We did finish up the cakes which were so great and lots of cookies.

On Monday I divided the cookies between the willing guinea pigs and mailed some out to of town people. We delivered the cookies to those close to us, even got a dinner out of Tom and Aletha as we there close to dinner time. Great jerk chicken.

Now I will need to sit down at the Health Department and ask the questions. There is a ton of work to do to get these to market.