COOKIE

Samuel Fedderly
Sep 5, 2018 · 6 min read

Midnight Autumn Cookie — The Midnight Autumn Cookie combines two very different yet calming flavor identities: apple and lavender. Nothing is more calming and comforting than a warm autumn apple pie and a cool calming lavender bed scent. Usually these two sensations are not united, but this cookie is an exception. The Midnight Autumn Cookie consists of a smooth lavender cookie foundation on the outside and a sweet apple mixture tucked on the inside.

Final Idea + Recipe

Ingredients (Makes 6–8 Cookies)

-¼ Cup Butter (sticks/ softened)

-⅜ Cup Granulated Sugar

-1 Egg

-¼ Teaspoon Vanilla Extract

-⅛ Teaspoon Almond Extract

-½ Cup All Purpose Flour

-½ Teaspoon Dried Lavender Flowers

-¼ Baking Powder

-⅛ Teaspoon Salt

-½ Cup Honey Crisp Apples

-¼ Teaspoon Ground Cinnamon

-½ Teaspoon Honey

-Purple Food Coloring (optional)

(Double ingredients for a dozen cookies)

Directions

-Preheat oven to 375 Degrees

-Cover muffin baking sheet with unsalted butter

-Beat melted butter and sugar into a mixing bowl

-Slowly add and beat egg to the butter and sugar mix

-Slowly add and beat the Vanilla Extract and Almond Extract into mix

- In a separate bowl, whisk together: flour, Dried Lavender Flowers, baking powder, and salt

-Gradually beat dry ingredients into the wet ingredients bowl

-Beat dough until malleable and then load tablespoon sized amounts into muffin tray slots. Flatten dough piles.

-Dice apples into small fragments

-Add honey/ Ground Cinnamon to diced apples and whisk together

-Add ½ tablespoon amounts of apple mixture into each muffin slot

-Layer another tablespoon amount of lavender dough on top of apple mixture. Flatten and tuck in corners

-Bake for 9 minutes

-If not baked through, broil cookies for 2 minutes

-If still not cooked through, bake cookies for two minute time intervals, checking on them every two minutes

-Enjoy

Idea Generation

I spent one afternoon (about 2 hours) brainstorming about my cookie. My thought process started by looking up the general definition of a cookie to see what exactly I was making. From there, I asked myself, “how can I make my own original cookie?”

Following this, I created an onslaught of different weird and wacky flavor combinations that were quickly jotted down. From these ideas, I choose my two favorite: white chocolate/ green olive and apple/lavender. Shortly after, I did some research to find out if indeed these cookies existed: They did not.

From the data I brainstormed, I constructed ten different concept designs for the cookies. To follow, I showed friends and students on my dorm floor the different cookie ideas and choose the two most popular.

Idea Test 1

Idea one was white chocolate/ green olive. The concept that was chosen was concept #10, the cookie that resembled a white cheese pizza with a green olive topping.

First I created the dough. The cookie dough consisted of necessary ingredients for chocolate chip cookies without the chocolate. I cut up this cookie dough into small and pizza like shapes and used the rest of the dough to assemble a thick crust, like the crust of a pizza. Into the oven they went. While waiting for the oven, I created the white chocolate frosting. Unfortunately, during the creation of the white chocolate frosting, there was a fatal flaw in the fact that none of the butter stuck to my white chocolate. This resulted in a mess of hard white chocolate clumps smothered in butter.

In response, I poured out the extra butter leaving the “frosting” that remained. Once the cookies came out of the oven, I added the frosting to each cookie. I then sliced up 4 green olives and added them to the top of the white chocolate frosting. I put the almost finished cookie back into the oven for 2 minutes and waited for the final result.

Following the unveiling the freshly baked cookies, I found out they were much too big for the initial bag test. Desirably two cookies are supposed to fit into one bag, but I could hardly fit even one into a bag. Finally, I cut up the cookies and passed them around my dorm floor for tasting. As a result, the taste testers were unhappy with the “horribly salty” and “just gross” cookie.

Idea Test 2

Idea two was apple/ lavender. The chosen concept was #3, a lavender cookie with apple, honey, and cinnamon tucked inside.

First I created the dough. The dough was loosely based off an almond cookie, with dried lavender flower flakes added to the mix. After creating the dough, I scooped out separate piles and put them onto a salted and buttered baking sheet. Then created the filling. Primarily, I diced up honey crisp apples and threw them into a bowl. After, I slowly added honey and cinnamon while stirring the mixture with a fork. Once I was satisfied with the consistency of the mixture, I added spoonfuls of it to the center of each pile of cookie dough. I then tried to wrap the mixture with the surrounding cookie dough, however, the dough was too soft and would not hold because of its lack of strength, adhesiveness, and elasticity. The cookies ended up not having a “hidden” mixture, but having a surfaced mixture. Finally I put the cookie dough/ mixture into the oven and waited for the final result.

Again, I failed to make cookies that passed the “bag test”. Only one cookie could fit into a plastic bag. After taking notes on possible improvements, I served the apple/lavender cookies to the same group of friends and dorm students. Lucky, the outcome of the taste test was much more positive. People loved how the two flavors interacted with each other, however, they did report that the cookies tasted “a bit perfumy” and “too salty”.

All in all, I found the apple/lavender cookie to be much more successful and decided to stick with the idea.

Iteration

My first iteration included the following changes:

Add purple food coloring (enhance the aesthetic)

-Bake in a muffin baking sheet (controlling the size for bag test)

-Cover baking sheet in unsalted butter (Decrease saltiness)

- Add more apple in ratio to cookie (improve taste/make it less “perfumy”)

- Make apple chunks smaller (more manageable when tucking them inside the cookie dough

-Use new layering technique(muffin baking sheet helps with layering)

My second batch of cookies was wildly more successful than the first batch. These cookies were smaller, had greater aesthetic, and tasted better. However, there was one problem that arose from my first iteration: with using the muffin baking sheet, the cookies took longer to cook. Some of the cookies that came out were not cooked through completely and the bottoms were falling apart. So, in response, I created a second iteration.

My second iteration included:

-More food coloring

-Let cookies bake for 2 minute time intervals, after the 9 initial minutes, until fully cooked through

-Broil (oven option) the top of cookies (helps ensure that there is no looseness/so they are cooked thoroughly

This iteration finalized my apple lavender cookie and the Midnight Autumn Cookie was created.

Samuel Fedderly

Written by

UMN Product Design Student

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