Cookies

Summary

Tasked with coming up with a unique yet novel cookie recipe, I, an inexperienced baker, thought of the task to be quite challenging. Although I may be an inexperienced baker, idea generation came quite natural as a cookie connoisseur. A few which rapidly came to mind were those playing off of a fruit-based flavor pallet while others consisted of entirely different shape and cooking methods:

While the idea process yielded numerous creative, novel recipes, I still did not have an idea on how to bake a cookie itself to begin with. In order to begin to learn how to bake and start experimenting with my cookie, I set out to research basic sugar cookie ideas to later modify. After learning how to bake a basic sugar cookie I figured I could easily tweak the recipe to yield tasty, creative cookies; this was not the case…

Idea Generation (include notebook pictures)

My initial thought process behind unique cookie concepts stemmed from basing a cookie off of a fruit-based taste profile or as an entirely new utility for a cookie. With an extensive engineering background, I initially leaned towards an emphasis towards utility in my cookie design. A few of marketable product-based cookie designs included a microwaveable cookie, a cookie in ice cream cone shaped form, and a cookie spoon. For the past few summers I have worked at a microwave packaging company developing microwave susceptors used in food products including Nestle Hot Pockets. With my technical background in this field I hoped to create a microwave based cookie with no oven needed. Unfortunately, early trial runs with such a concept yielded a simply inedible cookie. Noticing a trend in the quality of cookie with a change in cookie method, I reverted to my original fruit-based concepts.

As I have not personally ever tried a fruit-based cookie, nor have I heard of such a recipe, the creative route of a sweet, fruity cookie appeared natural. By walking through grocery store aisles, I was able to consider numerous fruit profile cookie concepts. Among these included a margarita, banana split, and fruit smoothie cookie which highlighted my favorites across the idea generation. Per standard with a banana split, my prospective banana split cookie required numerous flavor profiles working in unison. To recreate this flavor profile I chose to use dry powder ingredients added to the dough as a basis of the flavor. Along with the novelty of a banana split cookie, quick research of the fruit smoothie cookie concept showed many recipes for a fruit smoothie incorporated with a cookie, yet no concepts of a fruit smoothie cookie itself. This lead to my two cookie concepts I chose to pursue were the banana split and the fruit smoothie cookie.

Approach

To prepare my unique cookie recipe, I began with a basic sugar cookie recipe for the process itself of baking a cookie. This basic sugar cookie recipe consisted of:

Due to being an inexperienced baker, I believed using a baseline recipe concept to begin baking would be the most efficient method of yielding edible cookies. After wandering through unfamiliar baking and spice grocery store aisles, I miraculously came up with the ingredients called out in my recipe.

Ingredients in hand, I began the first trial run of my sugar cookie foundation. To bake each cookie I began with measuring the first few dry ingredients including flour, baking powder, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt as per standard — or at least per standard to my knowledge. Following the dry ingredients, I used an electric mixer to mix the butter and sugar portions to a light and fluffy texture. The eggs were then added and combined to the sugar and butter mixture while watching to maintain the original light, fluffy texture. I then combined the sugar/butter/egg mixture and the dry ingredient mixture to my electric mixer. For a rustic aesthetic look, I used a table spoon to place dough portions onto my baking pan. The dough portions were then shaped using a cup coated with powdered sugar to be pressed into the dough.

Cookie Idea 1 Test

Using the dough created in my baseline sugar cookie recipe, I split the dough into thirds to begin to attempt to make a banana split cookie. With the constraints of my local grocery store, I chose to use a strawberry extract flavoring for the strawberry dough, chocolate powder for the chocolate dough, and dried bananas for the banana dough. Through research I found dry powder forms of ingredients to lend themselves well to cookie baking. With this in mind I blended the dried banana chips into a fine powder to be used similar to the chocolate dough.

While the idea in my head of using 3 different dough flavors within the same cookie appeared clear in my head, execution of this task was not as simple. I initially tried to roll the dough into strings to then swirl much like one may do with cotton candy. However, the sticky quality of my dough made this nearly impossible. I then quickly chose to form each dough into long rolls to then spiral around similar to how salt water taffy is made. Slicing the dough into pieces vertically I was able to create a dough with all three flavors within the same cookie with clear distinction between each flavor

Aesthetically, I was quite proud of my banana split cookie. Unfortunately the pleasing aesthetics of my cookie did not translate to its flavor. Feedback among my roommates included:

“one of the worst cookies I’ve ever had”

“what is the yellow part? I’m not eating more of the yellow part”

“that’s the Nathan Peterman of cookies” (a reference fit for sports-fanatics such as myself and my roommates)

To my surprise, feedback of the cookies was quite accurate. Although the strawberry and chocolate portions by themselves had a great taste, the banana portion of the cookie had a tacky, yet crunchy consistency. My concept of blending the dry banana chips to a powder form was not sufficient for recreating the same consistency of the chocolate powder. Limitations on my ingredients at hand and the overall lack of replication of a true banana split lead to my decision to abandon this cookie concept.

Cookie Idea 2 Test (with feedback)

To begin testing the fruit smoothie, I baked a test set of sugar cookies per the original recipe. In order to create the fruit profile for the recipe, I chose to use a fruit smoothie icing. To create this fruit smoothie icing I began with blending a small sample of bananas, strawberries, and blueberries together. Using this mixture, I added vanilla icing to recreate the icing consistency with an altered flavor. Although simple in concept, matching the icing consistency necessary for spreading on the sugar cookie revealed itself to be quite difficult. With further additions of vanilla icing the flavor itself of the mixture became diluted. In order to field feedback for this cookie design before continuing, I reverted to my original icing structure as samples.

While the taste itself of the smoothie icing mixture itself was light and refreshing, the consistency made it difficult to spread across the cookie. Opposed to the banana split cookie, fruit smoothie cookies gained favorable feedback. A few of the statements included, “great taste” and “didn’t think I would like a fruity cookie but this is nice!” Responding to the positive feedback for this recipe, I chose to pursue the fruit smoothie cookie as my recipe to begin iterations.

Cookie Idea 2 Iterations

Keeping in mind original complaints of the banana split cookie’s texture, I turned to a key difference in my mixing technique. Through each of my cookie trials I had used an electric mixture to match the “light and fluffy” texture called out within the recipe. To my knowledge, an electric mixture was the most efficient means of replicating this consistency. Further research into baking techniques I learned over-mixing activating ingredients such as eggs makes for a dough which is runny and spread out. Putting the electric mixer aside, I used a spatula to mix the ingredients instead.

To my surprise, mixing the ingredients by hand made a world of difference. As opposed to my original runny dough texture, I had finally created a sugar cookie with the chewy, yet slight crunch, I have grown up knowing to love. With the sugar cookie base refined, I began to run iterations on the fruit smoothie icing.

To address the primary concern of my fruit smoothie cookie, I began with drastically reducing the portions I had originally used for the smoothie as shown. Paired with a reduction in fruit portions I began developing new methods to create an icing consistency to my fruit smoothie mixture. I began with adding powdered sugar to my mixture of fruit smoothie and vanilla icing to attempt to tack the ingredients together and nullify the runny texture of my original icing.

Adding powdered sugar did tack the ingredients together as I had desired, but at the expense of the icing’s flavor. Though the flavor of the icing became dull with the addition of powdered sugar, I believed it to be a step in the right direction for my icing.

After the powdered sugar addition iteration, I chose to scrap the vanilla icing entirely to embrace the fruit smoothie flavor I had desired from the beginning. With simply my fruit smoothie icing ingredients of banana, strawberries, blueberries, and powdered sugar, I was able to create an icing consistency similar to that of the store-bought vanilla icing. After numerous iterations and improvements, a final fruit smoothie cookie recipe was solidified:

Conclusion (final idea with recipe, note on creativity of the recipe)

Through trivial experimentation with fruit-based flavor profiles, I was very pleased to finish with a light, buttery sugar cookie with a bold fruit-filled icing. Final cookie recipe completed, a unique cookie name felt appropriate. My final cookie recipe was dubbed the “Triple Berry Bites” to be pitched to prospective manufacturers.

Tasked with creating a unique cookie recipe, the Triple Berry Bites pleasantly exceeds the requirements with a cookie non-existent through internet research. Though many may think of a classic chocolate flavor with their cookies, a fruit substitute refreshes one’s pallet. In addition to being a unique cookie concept the novelty of the recipe lends itself to a marketable concept. In order to have strong marketing characteristic, the cookie will need to be either low cost, differentiated, or fulfill a niche criteria. A fruit smoothie cookie recipe boldly differentiates itself from typical recipes with an entirely new flavor profile than those on the market. Triple Berry Bites not only satisfies cookie connoisseur’s taste expectations, but proves to be a marketable concept fit for cookie manufacturers.

References

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