We all have our days, right? Sometimes things just don't work the way we expect or anticipate. I wasn't feeling very "baker-like" last week, so I just decided to make some cookies. I took a gander at Mary Berry's book, and realized I had all the ingredients for her chocolate chip cookies AND the lime cookies on the next page. I figured I could kill two birds with one stone and make them both. Because who doesn't want an excess of cookies?
So I set to it. First the chocolate chip because those are just familiar. Somehow though, I messed them up. It was a pretty standard recipe; no surprises with it. But the cookies ended up small and crumbly and didn't spread. I was surprised and disappointed. The only "tip" in the book was to watch them like a hawk while they baked as you could easily overbake them. They should have been nice and chewy with a crisp edge. That was not what I experienced. Looking back I realized that I didn't use enough butter. Not really sure how that happened, but it did. Then I started the lime. They didn't go well either!
Somehow with this I used too much flour. I have no clue what was going on with me this day. Nothing good when it came to baking apparently. I was measuring everything out and using my trusty scale (which is how I figured out I didn't use enough butter with the chocolate chip cookies). I miscalculated the size of the bowl I needed to measure the flour and probably did the math wrong. I made lime biscuits essentially.
Just like the chocolate chip cookies, they did not spread out, and they were incredibly crumbly like biscuits. The recipe doesn't call for much: flour, butter, lime zest and sugar. Mix it all together and bake, nothing complex. The hardest part was putting the lattice design on the top, or in my case, measuring ingredients. I did attempt the latticet, but the dough just crumbled under the pressure. The texture didn't turn out, but they did taste quite nice. They would be a good spring/summer cookie as they are light and refreshing. I'll have to try again!
I did remake the chocolate chip cookies; I couldn't end the baking day without having some success. They turned out, thankfully! They bake quick, so the first batch is crispier than the others. Overall they were good, but I like my standard chocolate chip cookie recipe better. Two more recipes down in the Mary Berry Baking Bible.
These are on pages 198 and 199
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