Cookies

Jack Garanzini
Sep 5, 2018 · 13 min read

Final idea

My final cookie idea is the ice cream cone cookie. This cookie is a spin on the beloved dessert, ice cream scoop in a waffle cone. I had to make sure that ice cream flavor could withstand being in room tempurture for extended periods of time, so I substituted normal ice cream with freeze dried ice cream. This allows the cookie to stay in one piece, while maintaining its original flavor. The base of the cookie is a waffle cone batter which has been modified to be baked in a conventional oven rather than a waffle cone maker. The final component of the cookie is the strawberry topping, which is used to both give the effect of an ice cream topping and keep the freeze dried icecream stuck to the cookie. These ingredients combined give the flavor of an ice cream cone and provide and array of fun and interesting textures. I feel that this is creative because it not only solves the problem of keeping ice cream at room temperature, but still incorporates the flavors and textures which are typically found in an ice cream cone.


Recipe:

Ingredients needed:

  • 2/3 cup of all purpose flour
  • 1/4 tsp. salt
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 4 Tbs. (1/2 stick) unsalted butter melted
  • 1/4 cup milk (whole milk works best)
This is what the batter should look like when all ingredients have been mixed together
  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
  2. Begin by whisking the flour and salt together to combine thoroughly in a small mixing bowl.
  3. In a seperate larger mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugar. Whisk together for about 1 minute so that the sugar is fully incorporated into the eggs and the mixture lightens a bit.
  4. Melt the butter in a microwave. This only takes about 30 seconds.
  5. Add the flour/salt mixture to the egg/sugar mixture and stir thoroughly with a large mixing spoon. As you are mixing, add the butter and milk.
  6. Using a tablespoon, individually scoop out the batter onto two greased baking sheets, leaving room for the batter to flatten out
This is how the raw batter should be laid out on the pan

7. Pop these bad boys into the oven for EXACTLY seven minutes. 30 seconds more and they are burnt, 30 seconds less and they are a little too mushy and don’t firm up to become crisp. After about three attempts and 75 cookies later, the best length of time to bake these cookies is seven minutes flat. This gives them a nice crunch on the edges (they look sort of burnt in pictures but they are just very brown) and a good level of crispness on the inner cookie. These two characteristics combined allow the cookie to have both the taste and texture of waffle ice cream cone

8. Pull out of the oven and allow to cool for about 5–10 minutes. Fresh out of the oven they are very bendable, but after some cooling they harden right up and have a very snappy and crunchy texture to them.

9. Once the cookies are nice and cooled, add a small amount of strawberry syrup topping on them, about the size of a dime. Spread this around nice and thin on the top of the cookie.

10. Take your freeze dried ice cream and crush it up into small pieces. Make three rows of flavors (strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate).

11. The cookies are complete and are ready to be served!

The final cookie!

Idea Generation

First brainstorm sheet

My process for idea generation is to first get as many ideas as I could onto paper. There is pretty much no order to how I think but as long as I can get my ideas on paper, I am able to organize them later. My first brainstorming sheet is quite a mess but allows me to make connections between thoughts by drawing lines to possible flavor profiles and similar ideas.

Organized brainstorm sheet

Once I have a full page of loose ideas, I organize them into tighter knit groups. This allows me to group things by how they are similar and make connections for flavors and themes. Once that was done I made a long bullet point list of possible cookie ideas. I wrote up about 20 ideas, with flavors ranging from ghost pepper to tea.

Inicial cookie concepts

I then began to explore cookie shapes and flavors from different cultures, drawing small sketches of cookies of the asian culture, however, I decided to not go in that direction in the end.

Shopping list and batter research

I settled on the ice cream cone and mutli-flavored cookie ideas and began come research on what ingredients and equipment I would need to buy from the grocery store.

Ice cream cone cookie concept sheet
Initial multi-flavored cookie concept sheet

Each one of these ideas got there own more detailed page with small blurbs of my thought process and pros and cons of the concepts. These pages also included small illustrations which helped me convey the ideas to other people.

Revised multi-flavored cookie concept sheet

The concept for the multi-flavored cookie quickly changed at the grocery store as I could not find the flavors that I originally intended on using, so a small change was made to two of the flavors and the process on how to make them was drawn out.


Initial design of the multi-flavor cookie

Idea Test 1

My first cookie idea was the multi-flavored cookie. My thought process on this was how can I give the consumer choices while containing all of those choices in on cookie. The answer was the multi-flavor cookie. The idea is that which every way you bite the cookie, you get a different flavor combination. Just want a certain flavor? Thats fine, eat away at that corner. Wanna have peanut butter oatmeal? Bite the transition between those two flavors, combining them in your mouth. My initial idea came from a sandwich I saw that had six spreads in it, three orientated horizontally on one piece of bread, the other three speads on the other piece positioned vertically. The effect was that each time you took a bite out of the sandwich, you would get a different flavor combination. This inspired me to take the aspect of flavor combination and variety into my cookie. In the initial design I used four different flavors (chocolate, peanut butter, strawberry, and vanilla). These cookie flavors changed due to their availability, or lack there of, at the grocery store, so I decided to go with a new set of flavors (Chocolate, peanut butter, oatmeal, and sugar). I used these flavors and a few other ingredients (butter, milk, eggs, oil) to make the physical prototype. I explain the process below.

24 hours before actually baking the cookies. Ingredients needed for the 4 doughs (Not all ingridients pictured were used)
First you mix up the four dough flavors in seperate bowls (sugar cookie dough for example)
Roll the cookie dough onto plates, making the dough about 1/4 inch thick. You will then refrigerate these overnight so that the maluable dough become harder for cutting purposes the next day.
The next day, cut the dough into about 1 inch squares (do for all 4 dough flavors).
You should end up with a result like this.
Now that you have perfect little dough squares of each flavor, assemble each cookie on a greased baking sheet using one of each flavor per cookie. Be sure to press the seams where the different flavors meet for a good seal.
You should end up with a cookie pan that looks something like this.
Put your sheet of perfect little squares into the oven at 350 degrees for 8 minutes.
Fresh out of the oven they are very soft, so wait about 10 minutes for them to cool off and firm up.
After they have cooled, take a kitchen knife and cute the edges of the cookie so that it is a perfect square again. This gives the cookies a better overall look and corrects the preparations of each flavor.
The cookies are now done and ready for eating!

These cookies took two days to prepare but were well worth the time and effort because after having about 10 different people (about half of which I didn’t even know) try the cookie, I got a lot of feedback. I would have them taste the cookie and watch how they ate it. Interestingly enough, many of them decided to eat each cookie flavor individually instead of making flavor combinations. After some light suggestion, the participants seemed to understand the concept of combining flavors based on where you bite from. Once they understood the concept, they began to experiment with the flavor combinations of two or three flavors. Some participants were even apt to pop the whole cookie in their mouth at once, resulting in a range of emotions, not all good. After they ate the cookie I would ask for some comments.The people that I didn’t know were very prone to giving good or neutral opinions, so I asked for criticisms. What would you change about it? Would you buy this from a store? What is the worst part about it? From these comments I deduced a few things. One, the seams where the flavors met were not very rigid which sometimes resulting in a crumbling concoction of flavors. Some of the participants actually liked that aspect, saying that it gave the consumer options on which cookie they wanted to eat at the time. Only in the mood for chocolate? Just tear off that flavor and leave the rest. Some of the participants deemed the lack of regidity in the seems a negative, as it made the cookie harder to eat. Another criticism I got is that some of the flavor combinations don’t work very well together. For example, the least favorite combos were sugar & oatmeal and sugar & chocolate. Another issue is that when we present our cookies to the class, we need to cut them into multiple peices. This would not work for this cookie design due to the fact that you need all four flavors for the cookie to work properly. If you cut it into multiple sections, you will get one maybe two flavors, when the point of the cookie is to have options of four differnt flavors. However, there was a general consensus that this was a new idea. While doing research I found nothing like it and I even had multiple people say “I’ve never seen this before” — Janitor Trent. All and all I think the cookies were a general success, however there was definitely room for improvement. If I were to do them again, I would use another flavor rather than sugar. A good substitute may be a gingersnap or cinnamon cookie dough. This would give better combos and an overall better cookie. I would have also liked to adress the rigidity problem at the seams. This could most likely be achieved by changing the dough recipies slightly to make for better adhesion between flavors.


Idea Test 2

My second cookie idea, and the one that ended up being my final cookie, is the Ice Cream Cone Cookie. This whole cookie stems from the idea I had earlier on my brainstorming sheet of a chicken and waffles cookie. That idea may have been a little far fetched but I liked the idea of a waffle based cookie. I toyed around with a couple options for this (syrup on top? chocolate chip waffles? Bacon and waffles? breakfast cookie?), but eventually liked my idea for ice cream on a cookie to the waffle base. I though about how to make a waffle cone, and after doing some reasearch, realized that if I wanted to make a cone, I would need to buy a waffle cone maker. That was most certainly not happening as I am a college student and can’t just drop $60 on a waffle maker for a one time use. This lead me to slightly modify a waffle cone batter recipe so that it can be baked in a conventional oven. This not only allows me to make the cookie base without buying a waffle cone maker, but it also makes this recipe more viable for people who want to make these cookies and don’t have a waffle cone maker. Once the base of the cookie was sorted through, I decided to move on to the next part, the ice cream itself.I actually got this idea after someone was talking about frosting. I haden’t even thought about frosting before that moment. Maybe the topping of the cookie could be as interesting if not more interesting as the base. I tried to think of different forms of frosting, but my mind wanted to take me to the idea of ice cream. Normal ice cream posed an issue due to the fact that the cookies had to be stored at room temperature. Then it hit me, freeze dried ice cream. I discovered this stuff while on a field trip in the 5th grade, and remembered not only how good it was, but how interesting the texture was. It melted in your mouth as moisture was reintroduced back into the ice cream, leaving the consumer with the taste of ice cream. This would not only be a spin on an already loved dessert, but would be an innovative way to present the flavor profile of an ice cream cone. I ordered 6 packs of freeze dried ice cream off of Amazon and began to experiment with the baking process of the base cookie. My attempts are shown below.

Making the batter
My first batch after baking
Finished first attempt

My first attempt tought me a lot. I quickly learned that tempature effects the cookie greatly. I kept checking on the cookies every minute, and after five minutes, the cookies barely looked done. However 30 seconds later, the cookies developed a hard brown crust around the edges. I quickly pulled them out and let them cool. The first thing I noticed after they had cooled was the texture. Feeling it in my hand, there was an absence of the brittle texture that a waffle cone typically had. These cookies were rather soft on the lighter sections. The part that intrigued me the most about the first attempt was the browned edges. These not only smelled just like a waffle cone, but had both the texture and taste of a waffle cone. I had some of my friends try them, and they agreed that the edge was the best part, but the middle reminded them more of a waffle and not a waffle cone. This being said, in my iteration, achieving that edge texture and flavor is the most important part.


Iteration

As I learned from my precious attempt at making the ice cream cone cookie, timing is everything when it comes to baking them. With this in mind I laid out two baking pans with little batter drops on themand set a timer, one for seven minutes and one for seven minutes and 30 seconds. I put both pans in the oven at the same time and started the timers. Once the first timer went off I took one sheet out and then 30 seconds later I tooks the other sheet out.The result was this.

Although it does not show up in pictures as well as it does in person, the cookies that were cooked for just 30 seconds longer were vastly darker, almost black, and had more of a burnt flavor to them rather than a waffle cone flavor. However, the cookies that were cooked for exactly seven minutes were absolutely perfect. This gave me an exact time that I could use in my recipe so that if someone else did want to make these cookies, they definitely could. After having a couple friends test the two cookies, there was a general consensus that seven minutes was the perfect amount of time to get the perfect texture. With these new perfectly baked base cookies I was able to create what I think is a creative way to turn and ice cream cone into cookie form.

Timeline:

  • Tuesday 9/4/18: Create Medium blog post and begin to brainstorm with friends. Be sure to bounce as many ideas off of different people as you can. Write down all ideas in notebook, dont worry about organizing them too much, just get ideas on the paper. Later organize ideas into categories so that they become more sensible.
  • Wednesday 9/5/18: Research flavor profiles of different cultures and what different ingredients in a cookie dough do to a cookie. Watch Youtube videos on baking and read about different kinds of cookies and how to make them.
  • Thursday 9/6/18: Decide on at least two final cookie ideas. Write them down and dont forget to write down all of the little details. Make a shopping list and research stores in the area that carry the ingredients. If any of the hard to find ingredients come from Amazon order ASAP.
  • Friday 9/7/18: Go to stores and buy ingredients, organize ingredients by cookie recipe. Write down everything purchased and take pictures for the blog.
  • Saturday 9/8/18: Use your free day to bake as many of the cookie recipies as you can. See what works and what doesn’t. Dont be afraid to change the recipe if it needs to be altered. Take plenty of notes and pictured for the blog. Decide on a final cookie recipe by the end of the day. Make sure you have your friends taste the cookies and give their input.
  • Sunday 9/9/18: Put some work into the blog iteration and organize your notes and pictures. Try and fill out as much of the blog as possible. If the cookies need to be altered after the friend critique and asking some experts then try the altered recipe.
  • Monday 9/10/18:Perfect the cookie recipe, do extra research or consult another expert if nessesary.
  • Tuesday 9/11/18: Finalize blog post about cookies, add as many details as you can. Don’t forget to add all of the pictures and notes that you took throughout the process.
  • Wednesday 9/12/18:Cookie assignment is due! If dough needs to sit overnight then make it today.
  • Thursday9/13/18: Dozen cookies due! Make a dozen of the final cookies and go to class for its presentation. Make sure that they fit in a Ziplock bag and can sit overnight at room tempurature.
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