Cookies
By Madison Garnhardt

My final idea is a brown sugar sweet potato cookie with chai tea frosting. This is a cookie made with sweet potato puree and brown sugar topped with a frosting made out of chai tea powder. I feel this cookie is very creative because I used two ingredients that are not typically seen together, chai tea and brown sugar sweet potatoes, but compliment each other well because of the spicy chai tea, the sweet brown sugar, and the savory sweet potato. The texture of the cookie is also creative because I made the batter with two rising agents, baking powder and baking soda, so the cookies rose extra large to give a cake-like texture to compliment the liquid texture of the frosting. Here is a recipe for the Brown Sugar Sweet Potato cookies and Chai Tea Frosting:
Brown Sugar Sweet Potato Recipe:
2 cups Flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup melted coconut oil
1 1/4 cup sweet potato puree
1 cup brown sugar, packed
2 tablespoons maple syrup or agave syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla
Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
2. In medium sized bowl combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt.
3. In a large size bowl mix oil, sweet potato puree, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, maple syrup, and vanilla until smooth.
4. Slowly add dry mixture into wet mixture until dough forms.
5. Put dough in fridge for at least 30 minutes to an hour.
6. Create as many 1 inch sized circles as will fit on the pan with a non-stick silpat.
7. Bake for around 10–14 minutes, or until the edges begin to brown.
Chai Tea Frosting Recipe:
1/4 cup confectioners sugar
3 tablespoons Trader Joe’s spiced chai tea powder
1 teaspoon milk of choice
Mix together until a thick frosting texture.
IDEA GENERATION:
I started my week off with some notebook ideation.


As a warm-up I made some concept maps that included one map of alternative ingredients for basic cookie batters. For example, I found alternative ingredients for oil and one of those was coconut oil, which I did end up using because I did not have canola oil. Another example is an alternative to sugar is maple syrup, which I used to make the batter more liquidy.
Then, I made a second concept map on different toppings/mix in ideas. I feel this did not entirely help with the specific cookies I chose, but it did help me start becoming more creative with different cookie ideas, whether good or bad.

The next step I took was to start listing as many ideas for cookies as I could. I ended up with a little over 50 ideas. To narrow down my ideas I asked others to tell me which ideas they would want to see attempted and then went through my cupboard to see what I already have and what I would need to get, since I did not want to spend a significant amount of money on ingredients. After doing some research on my top 5 or so ideas, I decided on attempting a brown sugar sweet potato cookie, mainly based on my craving for sweet potato fries lately, and a scone cookie with chai tea frosting, based on the idea of incorporating a drink and a cookie in one cookie.
SCONE COOKIE WITH CHAI TEA GLAZE:
The first cookie I made was the scone cookie with a tea glaze. In order to make this cookie I needed the ingredients for scones, but I also wanted a small portion of batter so I did 1/4 portion sizes for all the ingredients to basic scones. I used 1/2 cup flour, 1/4 tablespoon baking powder, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/8 cup brown sugar, 3/4 tablespoon butter, 1/5 cup heavy whipping cream, 1/4 an egg, and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. To add a little flavor that would compliment the chai glaze I added 1/2 a teaspoon of cinnamon.

I started the batter by mixing all the dry ingredients into one bowl and the wet ingredients into a separate bowl. Then, I mixed them together until the batter was similar consistency to playdough.

The dough create three cookies that I cooked at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 20 minutes.

While the cookies were baking, I created the glaze with 1/4 cup confectioners sugar, 3 tablespoons spiced chai tea powder from Trader Joe’s, and 1 tablespoon 2% milk.

When I took the cookies out of the oven I was a little confused by the shape, but the bottom was browned like normal scones do when they are done.

After the cookies cooled down to room temperature, I rolled the cookies in the glaze until they were fully covered.
I was very impressed with the flavors of this cookie, especially the glaze. There was the blast of cinnamon flavor in the scones and the spice of the chai was a nice compliment. However, the scone texture was too dry for a cookie, and the cookie would fall apart during the eating process. I would repeat the glaze again, but I was not pleased with the integrity of the cookies.
BROWN SUGAR SWEET POTATO COOKIE:
The second cookie I made was the brown sugar sweet potato cookie. To determine the ingredients for this cookie I used the ingredients of my chocolate chip cookie recipe but exchanged the chocolate chips for sweet potato puree. I used 2 cups flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 cup melted coconut oil, 1 cup sweet potato puree, 1 cup brown sugar, 2 tablespoons maple syrup, and 1 teaspoon vanilla.

To make the sweet potato puree, I cut up one sweet potato and boiled it for about 20 minutes until the pieces were mashable.

Then, I drained the sweet potatoes and pureed them in a blender.

I mixed the dry ingredients in one bowl and the wet ingredients into a separate bowl and then combined them. The batter ended up being very sticky so I put it into the fridge for about 30 minutes until it firmed up a bit.

Once the batter was easier to work with, I made each cookie about two inches in diameter, which created 12 cookies. Then, I baked them at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 15 minutes until the bottoms were browning.

Right when the cookies came out of the oven I sprinkled some cinnamon and sugar on the top of them to add something extra.
These cookies were the perfect combination of sweet and savory with a more cakey texture than cookies typically do, since I added both baking soda and baking powder. Overall, they turned out very well and I would like to see how they taste with even more sweet potato puree.
REFLECTION:
The scone cookie with chai glaze did not end up working out the way I wanted because the texture of the cookie was very dry and bland. I believe the reasoning for this is because the triangle shape of scones has something to do with the baking process to create a moist, flavorful taste throughout the entire pastry. The chai glaze turned out much better than expected and I would still create it in the future with either normal shaped scones or normal cookies. The brown sugar sweet potato cookies worked out very well, but could use more sweet potato flavor. Next time I would add more sweet potato to the mixture. I decided to move forward with the brown sugar sweet potato cookies because they turned out better in texture and flavor and had an easier fix to the issues than the scone cookies. Also, I was so impressed with the chai tea glaze that I am going to attempt to add to the sweet potato cookies.
ITERATION OF SWEET POTATO COOKIE:

The sweet potato cookies turned out really well as they were so I made the cookies exactly like last time, except with more sweet potato puree. I then made the chai tea glaze exactly as I did for the scone cookies. The glaze tasted very good with the sweet potato cookie by adding that spice flavor to the sweet, savory flavor of the cookies.

One thing I was not happy with in this iteration was the glaze was very sticky and messy while eating the cookie which causes the entire tasting experience to be left behind. However, I did enjoy the fact that the liquidness of the frosting worked with the dryness of the cookie. In my final cookies, I created a thicker frosting out of the chai tea mixture so that the cookie is easier to eat and all the flavors can be enjoyed.
