Don’t you just love those foodie blogs that contain awesome recipes and gorgeous photos? You know, the ones with the images that not only make you drool but give you a jolt of confidence in believing that you too can accomplish such a masterpiece. Truth be told, I love real food. In fact, I consider myself a culinary enthusiast and love eating real food as much as I enjoy making it. I have an expansive and diverse palate, but am drawn to recipes that are simple and uncomplicated. And while I love to cook, baking (or in this instance, raw dessert making) is definitely not my forte. But for some odd reason I still like to try, perhaps thinking that it will come to me with time.
Last week, I came across this awesome looking raw cookie recipe. It had all of my favorite things (ginger, cardamom, coconut, flax seeds). And more importantly, it looked simple - my #1 criteria for attempting anything new in the kitchen. I was determined to try it with my daughter this weekend. We rarely consume white flour, so I thought this would be the perfect treat for all of us. I was pleased to see that I had most of the ingredients on hand and only had to venture out to get the Coconut Manna (btw, if you haven’t tried it yet, you should… it is to die for!).
So we get started with the prepping. Everything was going well. That is, until I realized that I couldn’t find the raw coconut flakes I thought I had. You see, we are moving in a few weeks and everything that is not used daily has been packed away. I went through at least 5 boxes in an attempt to find them, before I decided to run out and get more. So I return with my coconut flakes and we continue our adventure. Then my Vitamix decides to burn out on me. This usually happens when I am dealing with dry ingredients while using the wet blade. That should have been my que to stop, but I am not a quitter. I gave the Vitamix a few minutes to rest and continued. We finally mixed the dough and proceeded to the next step. We now had the task of flattening out the dough with a rolling-pin and cutting it into pretty little shapes. Easy enough, right? Then I suddenly remembered that …yep!...the cookie cutters are also packed away. “No problem”, I said to my daughter, “we’ll just improvise”. And improvise we did, and when it was all said and done we ended up with … um… raw cookie crumb.
My assistant refused to even try the cookies. To her defense, she is very picky and if something does not look “right” (and let's face it, these "cookies" did not look right) she will not try it. But my 3-year-old son is more adventurous. He tried a piece (I mean a crumb) and gave it thumbs up. Ok, he actually gave it ONE thumb up but that made it all worth it.
There is no moral to this story. And my outcome is in no way a reflection of the recipe itself. The raw cookie dough IS absolutely delicious. So good in fact that it is almost all gone and I plan to freeze the rest and eat it with ice cream. I would like to think that this recipe would have turned out better for me if I had my cookie cutters or if my Vitamix had not behaved so badly, but why kid myself? And in case you are wondering, no, I probably will not be attempting this again. I don’t know about you, but I only like repeating recipes I am mildly successful with. However, if this recipe appeals to you I hope you try it and let me know how it worked out for you. Considering my huge fail, I can at least live vicariously through your success.
P.S. - I am planning on making a raw cheese sauce tomorrow for dinner. It is not dessert, so I am quite optimistic. I will let you know how it goes.
No comments:
Post a Comment