Cookies

Luke Johnson
Sep 6, 2018 · 5 min read

Luke Johnson

Final Ideas + Recipe

Introducing the “Cool Ranch Dorito Chocolate Chip Cookie”.

  • After testing nacho cheese, spicy sweet chili, and cool ranch flavors of cookie, it was agreed amongst me and my peers that a cool ranch flavored cookie was the most tolerable. My final idea was the “Cool Ranch Dorito Chocholate Chip Cookie”. I feel this is a creative idea because not only is it new and original, but I took a risk and ignored doubt when I decided to put a Dorito into a cookie. Everyone I told my idea to had a similar response; their face contorted and they said “eww”. Despite the thoughts and opinions of my peers, I decided to follow through with the idea anyway. The final recipe is as follows:

Ingredients:

  • 3/4 cup butter, softened
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 1/4 cup cornmeal
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salf
  • 1 1/2 cups flour
  • 1/2 cup dark chocolate baking chips
  • 32 cool ranch Doritos

Recipe: For 16 Cool Ranch Dorito Chocolate Chip Cookies

  • Mix softened butter and sugar until creamy.
  • Add the egg and vanilla and beat well
  • In a separate mixing bowl, mix together cornmeal, baking powder, salt and flour.
  • Add to the creamed mixture.
  • Place 32 cool ranch Doritos into a ziplock bag and mash into tiny crumbs.
  • Mix in chocolate chips and Dorito crumbs.
  • Shape dough into triangles and put on a greased pan.
  • Bake in 350 degrees for 8–9 minutes.

Idea Generation

  • After brainstorming many ideas, ranging from peanut butter & jelly to peanut butter & licorice, I discovered that every idea I came up with had already been done before. It was only until I looked at my bag of Doritos in my dorm room snack drawer that I considered putting them into a cookie. I googled this new idea of mine and found nothing that even mentioned a Dorito cookie. That’s when I knew what I needed to do. I wanted to find out which flavor of Dorito would yield the best cookie: nacho cheese, spicy sweet chili, or cool ranch. I went home over the weekend and mixed these three flavors of Doritos into seperate cookie dough.
  • To get the full effect of eating a “Dorito cookie”, I decided to shape the cookies into triangles. The triangular shape makes the cookies somewhat resemble a Dorito.
  • I decided to use 5 chips in order to make 5 cookies. I mashed the chips in a ziplock bag and then poured them into the cookie dough. I repeated this process for all three Dorito flavors.

Idea Test 1

The Nacho Cheese Dorito Cookie

  • Note: As opposed to the final idea, these “first round” cookies did not have chocolate chips and only had a 1 chip to 1 cookie ratio. Besides these changes, the recipe was the same.
  • Nacho cheese flavor was the first cookie me and my friends taste tested. The general consensus was that they were disgusting and repulsive. For some reason nacho cheese and cookie simply did not mix well.

Idea Test 2

The Spicy Sweet Chili Dorito Cookie

  • After trying the nacho cheese flavored cookie, we gave the spicy sweet chili cookie a go. It was better, but still terrible. One thing is for sure, spice and cookie do not belong together. I kept my hopes up for the cool ranch Dorito cookie.

Idea Test 3

The Cool Ranch Dorito Cookie

  • We tried the cool ranch flavor last. This cookie had a much more positive result. We agreed that it was “not bad”, although we didn’t consider the cookie to be necessarily “good”. The response from the cool ranch cookie was the best, so that’s what I decided to improve upon.

Iteration

  • The cookies still lacked the Dorito flavor that I was going for, so there was a definite need to amplify the taste. I decided to change the ratio of chip to cookie from 1:1 to 2:1. This made the cool ranch clearly distiguishible within the cookie when I baked them for a second time.
  • I also decided to add chocolate chips to the mix because it added a sweet taste that the cookie was lacking. After taste testing the new batch of cookies, I found that the taste had improved significantly.

Timeline:

  • Tuesday (Sept. 4): Create outline + timeline.
  • Wednesday (Sept. 5): — — Outline + Timeline Due — — Brainstorm cookie ideas.
  • Thursday (Sept. 6): Brainstorm cookie ideas some more.
  • Friday (Sept. 7): Choose top 2 ideas and buy ingredients. Make idea 1 and idea 2.
  • Saturday (Sept. 8): Test idea 1 and idea 2. Let friends try them.
  • Sunday (Sept. 9): Make changes if needed. Taste test. Finalize recipe. Work on blog.
  • Monday (Sept. 10): Work on blog.
  • Tuesday (Sept. 11): Finalize blog post.
  • Wednesday (Sept. 12): — — Blog Post Due — —
  • Thursday (Sept. 13): Bake the final cookies before class.
  • Friday (Sept. 14): — — Peer Review Due — —

Luke Johnson

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