Cookies

Samuel Krakaur
Sep 5, 2018 · 8 min read

It’s the final cookdown

Final Idea & Recipe:

The final cookie I settled on is the Intersection cookie, and I think its name describes the cookie in more than one way. The cookie gets its shape from the Venn Diagram and its visual representation of the intersection of two or more sets (or flavors, as this is a cookie after all). The cookie also incorporates the intersection and blending of three primary flavors-sweet, tart, and savory. Finally, I think the concept of intersection is quite important to the field of design as a whole, and so at the risk of sounding corny I think it’s a fitting name for a first design project.

The Intersection cookie

There are three focal ingredients of the cookie: strawberries, goat cheese, and basil. I think the creativity of the cookie comes from the combination of these three ingredients and their overlapping shape on the top of the cookie. Because of the different combinations of flavors in each section of the cookie, the consumer can experience the flavor of one, two, or all of the different ingredients depending on where they bite down. While it might be tempting to, as it always is, scarf down the cookie in one bite, this cookie might actually reward the slower and more restrained approach!

The Intersection cookie recipie

Idea Generation:

My idea generation process began with me sitting and jotting down as many ideas as I could come up with related to cookies. After I started slowing down, I sat down at lunch with my roommate and friends and threw out some ideas with them. After a couple of days repeating this process (and writing down the random ideas I had in-between), I had come up with a good number of ideas.

First stage brainstorming

Many of the ideas came from things I had been thinking about or what my friends and I had been talking about over the past few days. The Tricolor idea, for example, came from a discussion about my interest in flags (I’d answered vexillology when asked my favorite word). Other ideas, such as those in the the Japanese candy line of thinking, came from interesting creations I’d seen before and remembered over the course of brainstorming.

Since my list of ideas varied hugely in creativity, novelty, and (most importantly for me as a hugely in-experienced baker) practicality, I looked to the more knowledgeable people around me for advice on which cookies might work. In the end, Google and common sense turned out to be profitable allies, as many of my ideas had either been done before (and more aesthetically pleasing than I could expect mine to be), were completely impractical, or weren’t interesting enough to stand on their own. I did, however, combine or take elements from the dropped ideas when narrowing down to my revised list.

Expanding on the ideas in the cut down list

I reviewed the revised list of ideas with my friends and collected feedback. Finally, I selected two branches to pursue, as cost of supplies was a concern and I felt I wouldn’t be able to put as much thought into too many different options. Looking back on this step, I wish that I had developed a third option, but in that moment I was significantly doubting my baking abilities even to make two cookies properly. I’ll also strive to generate more ideas in the first place. Since I ended up with an idea that I quite liked, I don’t think that I was particularly limited in my options this time, but in the future I think more would be better.

In the end, I narrowed it down to two ideas: Tricolor and Cookie Dough.

Idea Test 1:

The first idea I tested was Cookie Dough. While I initially toyed with the idea of literally serving uncooked batter rather than baked cookies, I figured that uncooked dough, thin rolled cookies, and frosting were not a combination that would end up far from a garbage can. In the end, I picked and slightly modified a fairly simple sugar cookie recipe to use as a base and counted on the mint flavor, decoration, and concept to carry the cookie to success.

Cookie Dough’s cookie dough

After my first attempt at baking the cookie, I quickly realized several things that effectively halted further development. First, the frosting that I had made did not work in the slightest. Secondly, I was going to have a very difficult time getting the mint leaves to stick to the cookie properly while simultaneously decorating the cookie to resemble money even in the slightest. Finally, the cookie just didn’t taste good, as one of my friends was quick to point out.

The Cookie Dough cookie… was a bit of a mess

As a result of these factors, the cookie was far less than satisfying, and it was at this point that I admitted that it was really only my love of all the puns involved with the cookie that had me take it so far in the first place. All this being said, I was still considering making a second draft, but the relative success of my next idea prompted me to spend more time developing that than working on a concept that I likely should have dropped earlier. Next time I’ll read over the phase, “you’re not designing for yourself!” far sooner.

Liam was less than impressed

Idea Test 2:

My second idea was fairly simple in concept: Create a triangular cookie with three contrasting flavors. After watching the “Flavor Bouncing” video in the in-class presentation, I initially tried to come up with some flavor concepts that I could apply to other ideas, however I found most of those ideas took away from the simplicity and focus on the flavors themselves that I thought were interesting. To continue with the idea of focusing on the primary flavor combinations, I used an even simpler sugar cookie recipe than I had for Cookie Dough (though it ended up looking and tasting pretty much the same).

The Tricolor cookie

My first batch of these cookies was much more successful than the last. I baked a few different shapes to begin with and chose the most interesting one to top with the primary ingredients. The more simplistic design of the cookie allowed me to spend more time on making the cookie look aesthetically appealing (I quickly learned large details are much easier to get right than smaller details when baking, who would have guessed!). Furthermore, my taste-tester actually thought that the cookie tasted pretty good. I had initially settled on strawberry, goat cheese, and basil as my three focal ingredients as I thought they were the combination with the most variety flavor-wise while still being “normal” enough that most people would find them tasty, and fortunately these were both things that my tester agreed worked with the cookie.

Peter enjoying a moment of cookie-induced bliss

Satisfied that this line of development was much more promising, I decided to iterate on it further.

Iteration:

Analysis, feedback, and final iteration for Tricolor and finally Intersection

The main problem with the Tricolor concept was that I felt it was far too simple. I wanted to add an element that I felt would add to the focus on the three primary flavors, and so I went back through my initial ideas to look for an element that I could incorporate into the Tricolor concept.

The Venn Diagram concept was one that I had really liked before, but I had initially dropped it because I felt that it would have too many different ingredients and flavors that would all muddle together when eaten. It therefore made a lot of sense to combine the two ideas, taking the three simple flavors of the Tricolor idea and combining it with the shape and overlapping ingredients of the Venn Diagram idea.

The only thing I had to correct before baking was to reduce the amount of sugar in the dough, as only main complaint I had gotten from taste-testing the Tricolor cookie was that it was too sweet. From there, I applied my slightly increased baking skills to the new recipe and shape, and pretty quickly the Intersection design was almost finished.

New dough with reduced sugar

I put the primary ingredients on top in the Venn Diagram pattern, and, after accidentally covering half the strawberries with goat cheese and having to wash them off, the Intersection cookie was done. In the end, I’m happy with the balance of novelty and practicality that the cookie settled on. While I certainly could have made the cookie more complex (the original Venn Diagram cookie would have done that), I think the Intersection cookie took a good balance between having too much going on and too little. It also wasn’t gimmicky like Cookie Dough, which I’m very happy about, and best of all it tastes and looks pretty good! I’d call that a successful cookie.

The final product yet again

Thank you for reading!

Timeline:

Tuesday Sep 4

  • Post initial blog outline and timeline. Begin discussing ideas with roommate and friends, brainstorming in design notebook.

Wednesday Sep 5

  • Continue brainstorming and reach out to more experienced bakers for flavor and basic recipe advice.

Thursday Sep 6

  • Narrow down basic concept to three ideas. Share basic concepts with bakers for recipe advice. Begin second stage of brainstorming specifics based on concepts.

Friday Sep 7

  • Discuss specific concepts with roommate and friends and finalize cookie concepts and rough recipe. Share final concepts with bakers for recipe advice. Aquire ingredients for three top ideas.

Saturday Sep 8

  • Small batch baking and taste testing of ideas. Secondary batch baking if necessary if initial batch is a complete disaster. Bake semi-final recipe.

Sunday Sep 9

  • Flexible catch-up day assuming that not all will go according to plan.

Monday Sep 10

  • Bake final recipe and ensure that it doesn’t need any more tweaking. Begin blog post outline using records kept during design process.

Tuesday Sep 11

  • Cleanup and final edit on blog post.

Wednesday Sep 12

  • Sit tight and hope that the aforementioned steps went to plan.

Thursday Sep 13

  • Bake final batch of cookies prior to class, cut 6 least appealing into tasting samples.

    Samuel Krakaur

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