Today's recipe comes to you with lackluster enthusiasm. I hit the ground this morning low on spunk and pep. I attribute my low energy to the LDN - low dose naltrexone. Last night was my first night taking medication for MS. There are few side effects with this particular medication. Unfortunately there is one sacrifice that must be made during the first week on the meds: vivid, frequent, crazy dreams. I can attest to the severity of this side effect. It feels like I was running in circles all last night, not getting my beauty sleep.
It is only to be expected that my sleeplessness took its toll on my baking adventure of the day. It was a half-hearted effort that resulted in a decent, edible but far from exciting cookie.
The recipe, "White Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Cookies" sounded divine. Cheesecake itself sounds luscious and the simplicity of a cookie can't be beat - especially when baking on empty. The pictures showed a soft, pillowy cookie with a light crumb and golden hue. With high hopes, I set out my butter and cream cheese to get them softened and ready for baking.
After mixing all of my ingredients and refrigerating my dough for the recommended two hours, I popped my little balls of dough in the oven on a parchment lined baking sheet. Convect 350 instead of bake at 375. Ten minutes later and my cookies were looking good. A golden brown crisp was forming on the edges and the tops were almost precisely like the picture. I pulled them out of the oven, let them cool for a few minutes and then transferred them to a sheet of foil.
From my vantage point the cookies looked perfect but from the mouth of my official taste tester came a different story. Her face said it all: these cookies were not a home-run, smash-hit goodie.
I left the next few batches in the oven for a few minutes longer at the directive of my taste tester but still the cookies never met the high expectations I had set for them. With every bite the cookies just simply fell flat….
As you know I usually post a photo and link to a particular recipe at the end of each baking experiment recap. Not so today. The recipe was a failure. The pictures were just so-so. My recommendation for today is this, don't get discouraged when your cookies fail and your tasters give your creation two thumbs down. Just bake again tomorrow. Which is precisely what I'm going to do.
Every day won't be the greatest day of your life and every cookie won't be "the best ever." Simply get up and give it another go. Learn from the failure and use a different recipe the next time around.
As for me, I won't be baking up another batch of White Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Cookies again any time soon. I'm moving on to another recipe, another dessert type and another day of baking.
But first, some much needed sleep.
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