cookies
MANGO CURRY COOKIES

Ingredients:
½ cup of dried mango
½ cup of flour
½ cup of brown sugar
⅓ cup of mango pulp
½ stick of butter
¼ teaspoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of curry powder
1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 pinch of cinnamon, ginger, and chili powder
- In one bowl, mix the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, curry powder, and spices together.
- Take the dried mango strips and cut into small dice-like pieces. Add into the mixture.
- Warm butter until it’s soft. In a separate bowl, add the butter, egg yolk, vanilla extract, and mango pulp and mix well.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Stir well until dough-like.
- Preheat the oven to 375°F. Chill the dough for 10 minutes.
- After chilling the dough in the freezer, place equal size dough bits on a clean cookie sheet.
- Bake for 10 to 15 minutes.
- Remove from oven and let it cool for 5 to 10 minutes before eating.
Idea Generation

I started off my process by brainstorming a couple of foods and flavors that I really enjoy. I came up with a sheet filled with flavors and circled a few that would sound good in combination.
After telling my friends about the project, they pitched in some of their ideas, and from there I considered their opinions as apart of my brainstorming process.
Idea Test #1 - Mango Curry Cookies
My first idea was to create mango curry flavored cookies. This idea was inspired from some really tasty Thai Curry Chicken I had at a restaurant the previous week. In this Thai Curry, there were mango fruits mixed in with the curry, and it was poured over the rice. The mango provided a very nice sweet contrast to the spicy curry.

I thought of some things that would be good to use for the flavor, and decided that I could make it like chocolate chip cookies, but instead of chocolate chips, have dried mango bits. I also used some mango pulp just to give the base a little mango flavor. My first batch of cookies turned out really good, however the consistency of the cookies was a little off. The cookies were coming out a little cake-y.

Idea Test #2 - Coconut Sticky Rice Cookies

My second idea was coconut sticky rice cookies. This idea was inspired from a Filipino dessert called “suman”. This dessert compiles of a sweet sticky rice cake with a caramelized coconut topping. My grandma made this dessert all the time when I was younger, however because it is sticky rice, it gets kind of messy. I thought it would be nice if I could recreate a version of this dessert in a cleaner, non-messy way. I thought that if I could implement it as a cookie it would be an amazing way to enjoy this favorable dessert in a smaller compact way.
I used rice flour instead of normal flour, and I added sticky rice to the dough mixture. The issues that I came across with were that the final product didn’t have enough sugar, therefore they tasted a little bland. I also left them in the oven too long, so they ended up a little hard.

Iteration
I decided to go ahead with the Mango Curry cookies. Compared to the Coconut Sticky Rice cookies, the Mango Curry ones are much easier and faster to make. With the added amount of time it takes to make the sticky rice, the Coconut Sticky Rice cookies take a little too long.
With my first trial, I noticed the cookies were coming out more like cake, therefore for my final product, I have decided to add less mango pulp with hopes that it doesn’t become spongy again.

