Cookies

Final Idea +Recipe

Ingredients
In order to make these minty and chewy Winter Swirls, you will need your wet ingredients in one bowl: 1 cup of softened butter or margarine(or 2 bars), 1 cup of sugar, 1 egg, and 1 and 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract; then your dry ingredients in a separate bowl: 3 cups of flour, 1 tsp of baking soda, 1 tsp of salt (iodized), and 1 tsp cinnamon; and finally you can have whatever inside flavoring you want, but for this we will have a minty chocolate, for which you will need 1 cup of chocolate chips, 1 tbsp of softened butter, and 3 pinches of crumpled dried mint. You will also want 3 cups of milk to loosen the dough and chocolate mix, and you will also need enough powdered sugar to add to the cookies later on.
Recipe
First, mix all the wet dry ingredients in their separate bowls until they are thoroughly mixed. Then add the ingredients together plus the 3 cups of milk, making sure to mix them while doing that, and continue mixing until you get a good dough. You can taste a little amount to see if you approve of the flavor and add extra ingredients as preferred. Once you are satisfied with the dough, put it into the fridge for an hour to chill.
In the meantime, prepare the chocolate filling by putting all the ingredients into a microwaveable bowl and mix around a little. Microwave the chocolate for 30 seconds and remove to stir. Repeat until the chocolate filling is smooth and creamy. Add milk as needed to loosen up the mix. Also, start preheating the oven to 400 degrees
Now, with your chilled dough and chocolate filling, go to a cutting board or counter to roll out the dough. You may prefer having flour on hand to prevent the dough from sticking to the counter or the rolling pin. Grab a handful of dough and roll it out, making sure to change your angle you are coming from, and roll it to about 1/16 inch thick. with a spatula or knife, cut a rectangle out of the dough about 4 inches by 6 inches. Take the excess scraps around the border and set them aside to reuse later. Then, with a rubber spatula or a spoon, spread the chocolate filling over the dough and get as close as you can to the edges.
Here comes the fun part. Take the 4 inch side and start rolling the dough into a roll to be roughly 1 inch wide. You may need a knife or spatula to help you get under the dough. Now with your roll, cut it up into 3 or 4 square pieces (or leave it intact). Set the roll segments onto a cookie tray and spread them out evenly. You may wish to press them down to flatten them a little so they aren’t tall. Place them into the preheated 400 degree oven and cook for 9 to 12 minutes or until they turn a light brown. Finally, with your baked cookies, add the powdered sugar to present the cookie with a snowy, wintry feel; otherwise, you may add frosting or other flavoring as you desire. The dough should be fairly soft and chewy.
Idea Generation

My initial ideas centered around how to better the shape of the cookie to direct the eater’s mouth in a certain way, whether it be with extended limbs or having it long and thin. After that, I considered what foods I could emulate with a cookie, such as a quesadilla, s’more, donut, tortilla roll, burrito, pizza, etc. Eventually I chose to go with the roll because after researching what ideas haven’t been taken, I found that having the rolls on the side was more original than the spiral cookies that had rolls on the top face.

At this point in time, I had returned home over the weekend and looked through a Pillsbury Doughboy cookbook and browsed through YouTube for basic recipes, such as some “roll out” recipes that one will see common for cutout holiday cookies. I also consulted my mother about what certain ingredients do in a cookie recipe as well as the order they go in.
Idea Test 1
I’ll admit, I didn’t really experiment with the ingredients and flavors as much as I did the mechanics of the recipe. My first test was to run 7 cookies (rolls that haven’t been cut into squares) in a 350 degree oven and removing the cookies when the timer reached 8 minutes plus 1 minute time intervals to estimate which time produced the most appropriate cookies.
Idea Test 2
This test is essentially the same as the first test, only this time at 400 degrees. In my opinion, this temperature yielded the best results at 9 minutes.
Iteration
After sharing the results from the 2nd Test, I was given the suggestion to add powdered sugar on top of the cookie roll. This idea ran with the wintry feel that came from the minty flavor in the chocolate. I also considered slightly altering the order in which the vanilla was added to the dough, which entered not with the wet ingredients but with the 3 cups of milk after the dough had been mixed. I imagine I could have experimented more with having peanut butter, nutella, homemade jelly/jam, or other flavors to act as the filling rather than mint chocolate.
— — — — — — — — — — — — —
Timeline:
Tue Sep. 4 : basic shapes and flavors, brainstorming , log into Medium
Wed Sep. 5 : upload outline and timeline to Medium, continue designing
Thu Sep. 6 : research if ideas are taken and build off of vacancies
Fri Sep. 7 : continue research into recipe, decide on a model
Sat Sep. 8 : go home, acquire supplies, cook first iteration and test
Sun Sep. 9 : cook second iteration and test, have dozen ready when return
Mon Sep. 10 : make any final changes
Tue Sep. 11 : finish blog post
Wed Sep. 12 : continue finishing blog post
Thu Sep. 13 : be ready to present dozen, revel in the accomplishment
Fri Sep. 14 : peer review someone else’s thing