Adventures in Baking

So remember that little list at the end of my last post?
Well, this week I began checking off some of those items.
First I made the Cranberry Muffins with Orange Marmalade Glaze.
They were DeLiCioUs! Especially while they were still warm and fresh! So good and easy that I forgot to take pictures.

Then, I made the pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.
What a fiasco! I have never before made a bad cookie! I will NEVER use this recipe again. The author of this particular recipe attempted to make the cookies healthier by using less sugar. And maybe I did something terribly wrong in translation, or there is some little tip that she forgot to mention in her directions, but my cookies were awful.
Making them was fine.

This is a very typical pre-baked cookie shot. 

One would never suspect that something was wrong.

They came out like this:

They look like normal cookies, but not like normal PUMPKIN cookies, which really isn't the end of the world.

The flavor was great--enough pumpkin and spice, but they weren't puffy. 

And even when I baked them longer, they were still a little mushy. I deduced that this was the result of too much pumpkin.

My solution was to add a tad bit more flour. 

The next batch (3rd--pumpkin recipes make TONS of cookies) was less doughy, but still not puffy.

So I added maybe an 1/8-1/4 teaspoon more baking soda. 

And those came out like this:

As you can see, more poofy, but not really enough. I baked the last 2 batches without further adjustment because they tasted fine. 

Then, to my horror, after fully cooling, all of the cookies took on a dry-overly-floured-almost-sour (like baking soda) taste. This included the first few batches of cookies. 

All in all, I probably messed up huge somewhere. And the amendments I made to the recipe probably added to the chaos, but I honestly don't think that 2 Tbs of flour and 1/4 tsp baking soda would really make cookies that tasted that bad.

I've made pumpkin cookies before, and they were fine. I obviously just don't agree with this recipe.

So I threw away probably 30 rock-hard, too-much-flour tasting cookies.

That was sad.

But I have 3 more 29 oz. cans of pumpkin, so I'm bound to try again sometime.

So, wish me better luck in future baking endeavors. 

We'll call it all part of a learning experience :)