Cookies and (ice) Cream!

So a friend of mine once sent me this link to a site for Cookie Bowls and it's taken me a while, but I've finally found the time and courage to try and make them! So I did. I made choc chip cookie dough using my 'cookie mix in a jar' recipe, sprayed the bottom of my cupcake tray (a lot), and was ready!

I call this... Cookie Bowl Attempt #1:

But... Within 5 minutes inside the oven, it was already unsuccessful...

Okay... What did I do wrong...? I decided it would probably be a good idea to look at the recipe CLOSELY. Okay... Turns out I was well off with my own cookie mixture! Time to do it right...

Thus begins... Cookie Bowl Attempt #2:

The recipe said I needed 1.5 cups of 'granulated sugar'... I assumed that meant just white sugar, right? .. Well, I had 1 cup of white sugar left, and because I didn't wish to make a 3rd appearance at Coles in one morning, I made up the last 1/2 cup of 'granulated sugar' from the remainder of my caster sugar, and some brown sugar... Following the recipe, I needed to mix that with 2 sticks of softened butter... Well, if 1 stick is 250g, then I needed 500g. So I scooped out the contents of a tub of margarine :)

Looked fine when it was all beat up, so I didn't think much of it! Of course, I added in chocolate bits :)

Once everything was mixed together, the recipe said I needed to roll out the cookie mix onto a generously floured surface... Is this too generous??

Maybe.

The mixture felt SO soft, though. I was imagining that it would feel like shortbread, but this was nothing like that. I had no idea how I would even use a cookie cutter on this... So, I just moulded it in my hands and placed it around the upside down cupcake tin... At least it looked neater than the last attempt!

But, AGAIN... 5 minutes in the oven, and the mix was sliding off the baking tray... WHAT DID I DO WRONG THIS TIME?? ... I had followed the recipe, even down to the almond extract, which I now know is NOT a favourite smell of mine!

So going with my husband's idea of Google'ing some measurements, it turns out that 1 stick of butter is NOT 250 grams. It's only 113 grams! ... With that in mind, MY recipe had more than twice the amount of butter in it! Yikes.

I wanted to get this recipe right! I can't give up now! But by this time, I was out of flour, out of sugar, and only had some scrapes of margarine left... So there was really only one thing to do... Yep. I sent my sick husband to the shops to get some more ingredients for me so that I didn't have to go there for the fourth time today! :) He's such a great guy. Lucky, the doctor he needed to see was right next to Coles anyway, so it was maybe, perhaps, only a minor detour...? :)

So now, I present you with... Cookie Bowl Attempt #3:

THIS time. I was sure I would get it right! And so far, the mixture was looking much more like biscuit mixture than sloppy cookie mixture :)

A good way to keep your rolling pin clean is folding baking over the mixture you're rolling, and so using the rolling pin on top of baking paper :)

In my excitement of this actually looking right, I forgot to 'generously flour the rolling surface'... Uh oh. I hoped it wouldn't make too much of a difference...

And I could finally use the cookie cutter! I have a whole set of these flowers, 6 total, in all different sizes... Yay! The one I used was the second largest.

Finally, this was looking good!! I didn't add the choc chips into the recipe before rolling, because, since this was already turning out better than my other attempts, I had a different idea! To place the choc bits around the outside of the cookie bowl. Like this:

Hmm... Generously flouring my rolling surface probably would have made a difference, hardening the mixture that little bit extra, so that they kept their original shape in the oven... The cookie bowls still looked fine! They were just a bit longer than I had planned, and so some of their sides ended up touching whilst baking...

Also, maybe because I didn't add all that extra flour, my cookie bowls were still quite soft after the recipe's 'bake for 11-13 minutes'. It was actually more like 20-25 minutes before I thought they were ready to come out!

At least I generously oiled the cupcake tray! ... Not that it made a difference when you over-cook cookies, as they all stuck solid to the tray! :(

With my husbands help (banging the tray to hopefully loosen the VERY cooked cookie bowls), he managed to rescue 1/2 of a bowl! ...
Should I just give up?

No way! There was some mixture left, and I had a silicone cupcake tray that didn't currently have cookie mixture all over it...

So... Cookie Bowl Attempt #4 !!!

This time, I remembered to flour my rolling surface! Perhaps that was the key to them turning out better?

Since silicone trays are floppy, I placed the cupcake tray onto a flat baking tray... Okay... Lets see how it works this time!

*sigh* ... Most of the sides had fallen off within 5 minutes in the oven! ... Perhaps this time I rolled them too thin? Maybe the silicone cupcake tray was too tall, and I needed the 'flowers' to be bigger?

There were 3 (out of 6) 'bowls' with a part of their sides still in tact, though, which was at least a little bit encouraging... Sort of. I added a scoop of ice cream inside each 'bowl', which was going to be my plan from the beginning.

But... After FOUR pretty unsuccessful attempts at this recipe, I have decided that I will remain defeated on these cookie bowls! ... A challenge to those reading, though, how about you try it out? I'd love to hear how you go!! :)

In the meantime, I think I'll be having my ice cream in a plastic bowl ;)