Just when you think you are on a roll, the roll turns on you, doesn't it? One leisurely afternoon a couple of weeks ago I thought it was a delightful idea to engage in a little cookie making. I was feeling my holiday spirit, and I thought a ricotta lemon cookie sounded divine. When I tried to make this recipe, though, something went wrong... horribly wrong.
I followed the recipe pretty religiously, so I think that the problem was really in one of the ingredients... like maybe the baking powder went bad, if that is even possible. I will be investing in new baking powder. But ingredient arguments aside, I know you use be wondering how epically did I fail exactly? Well, the taste was there, but the cookies themselves turned into a sort of cake, not cookies at all.
I took pictures, as usual, so that you could share in my utter disappointment of the cookies that never were...
I followed the recipe pretty religiously, so I think that the problem was really in one of the ingredients... like maybe the baking powder went bad, if that is even possible. I will be investing in new baking powder. But ingredient arguments aside, I know you use be wondering how epically did I fail exactly? Well, the taste was there, but the cookies themselves turned into a sort of cake, not cookies at all.
I took pictures, as usual, so that you could share in my utter disappointment of the cookies that never were...
It started out innocently enough: salt meets baking power meets all purpose flour.....
I took the room temp butter
Added my sugar, and beat it for 3 minutes
I added the lemon, ricotta, eggs, etc.
Then dry ingredients meet wet ingredients
...And it looked like we were headed for ricotta cookie bliss!
Then it happened: they started to spread....
...and spread.
Oh the humanity!
So, my baking readers... what the heck do YOU think went wrong? I cooked 'em off anyway, and they really did taste great. I took the disappointment much better this time, too. [You might recall my epic meltdown over the scrapple a couple of months ago...] So at least there's that. Either way, these cookies and I did not jive this first time around. You betcha next time will be different!
Baking powder that's lost its oomph can definitely do this. I had a similar experience with brownies that didn't bake up properly due to no-longer-active baking powder. The easiest thing to do is to test your baking powder - put about a teaspoon or so in a heatproof bowl, and pour in some boiling water. If the powder bubbles up a ton, the baking powder is still good. If it doesn't, or only foams a tiny bit, it's not good any more.
ReplyDeleteI also had the misfortune of trying to bake bread with instant active yeast that had died off. Bread never rose. Threw out the old jar of yeast, got a new one, bread is wonderful again.
Thanks Elle Marie! I definitely think it was the baking powder--but I LOVE your tip on how to test! VERY helpful!
ReplyDeleteI may get the hang of this baking thing yet!
I've had an experience or two like this with whoopie pies, too. The caramel apple ones for Friendsgiving met a similar fate. Elle Marie stole the words out of my mouth about baking powder and yeast!
ReplyDelete