Misadventures in Baking

It's hard to see, but they are in fact, pink.

*Warning: This is a little lengthy, but entertaining (at least I think it is).
Do you remember me posting (every time I post a recipe) that I don't bake? Well, today's post is a fine example of why.


Tonight I had the urge to bake (this is a very rare thing). My darling husband was so wonderful and bought me a bag of oatmeal, like 2 weeks ago. Since then, he's been asking me when I was going to use some of it. (Mostly because I just HAD to have it.) He's working late tonight, so I thought oatmeal cookies would be perfect. 


Thinking I could be all fancy and make some with chocolate and raspberries, I hopped online in search of the perfect recipe. I found one that sounded pretty healthy.




Healthy Honey Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour (all-purpose is good too)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/2 cups rolled oats (aka oatmeal)
• chopped dates (optional) or figs (optional) or raisins (optional) or currants (optional) or chocolate chips (optional) or chopped nuts, etc (optional)

Directions:

1. 1 Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a cookie sheet with nonstick cooking spray (just for convenience :]).
2. 2 Using a mixer with the paddle attachment, mix together the butter, brown sugar, honey, egg and water thoroughly.
3. 3 Sift together the dry ingredients then stir in the oats. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix. Add any additional ingredients you've chosen.
4. 4 Drop by heaping teaspoonfuls onto the cookie sheet. Bake 12 to 15 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

Everything started out great, I got my baking box out so I would have what I needed right at hand. As per the instructions I put my butter (well, I used margarine) in the bowl, then the brown sugar and honey. I ran out of honey, so just finished it off with agave syrup. 

I mixed all of that and went to the fridge for an egg. My heart sank. When my darling husband made eggs for dinner, he used up the last 3 eggs. Being not only Denmark (the land where grocery stores close at 8 on weekdays), but also a holiday, I was completely outta luck.


Only think I could think of was to turn to the Mecca of Wisdom aka Google. I searched for "egg substitutions for baking cookies". Within in a matter of mere seconds I found my answer! Well, I decided to go with "1/4 cup of applesauce (or other pureed fruit)", because I didn't have anything else. I decided to use pureed raspberries.


While thawing my raspberries in the microwave, I got the brilliant idea to add some of the fresh ginger I had hanging out in the fridge. I diced about 1/2 inch of the ginger and threw it into my blender along with the raspberries.The raspberries and ginger slush went into the mixture while I added the other ingredients. (I opted to skip the water since the raspberries are so runny as it is, and I also used rye flour because that's about the only flour we keep in our house.) 


Of course, if you've been reading anything on my blog, you know I didn't exactly measure. I added way more oatmeal and flour and baking soda than the recipe called for. Actually, I eyeballed everything. It was still too runny, so I went to town adding more oatmeal and rye flour, then topped it off with a little more baking soda. The 'dough' had a pretty nice consistency by then and I decided it was time to put them in the oven. I baked them for 
about 15 minutes and took them out to cool.

Once they cooled enough for me to eat a defective one, I dug right in. It completely fell apart. So, I put my thinking cap back on and decided to just roll them up into balls. 


Now they're less like a cookie and more like a soft, chewy granola ball. They're a major fail, but they sure are a tasty fail!