Cookies

Sanjay Roy
Sep 6, 2018 · 6 min read

Final Idea + Recipe

Honey-baked Brie Cookie

Ingredients:

Pillsbury sugar cookie dough, brie cheese, honey, strawberry spread, mint leaves, apples

Recipe (1 cookie):

Preheat oven to 350°F

Place two cookie dough rounds on baking sheet

Make large indent in ONE of the rounds and place small slice of brie inside

Squeeze out 1–2 tablespoons of honey onto brie

Bake in oven for 15–20 minutes, or until golden brown

While cookies are in oven, cut out thin slices of apple

Lather a spoon of strawberry spread on the flat bottom surface of the cookie without brie

Place apple slices on top of the strawberry spread, and then place 1–3 mint leaves on top of the apple slices

Assemble cookie by placing top half onto bottom half like a sandwich

Done!

The final cookie I came up with is simply called the “Honey baked Brie Cookie”. The honey baked brie is first baked INTO the cookie and is then put together with several other complimentary flavors to create a cookie that feels fresh and summery, but still gives the eater the satisfaction of eating a delicious cookie.

Why is it creative?

I believe my cookie idea was creative because I used the most out of the limited resources I had at hand and did my best to create a cookie full of complex and atypical flavors that one wouldn’t normally find in a baked good.


Idea Generation

I knew I wanted to start building ideas around something I already had in my fridge in order to save as much money as I could so I took a look at what I had… some cold cuts, a couple drinks, and a wedge of brie.

Since I figured a meat cookie might be a little too “creative” to the point of being impractical, I decided on trying to make a cookie with brie as the “twist” ingredient. I began researching on what kinds of flavors work well with brie, as well as other flavors that can be used in baking and I found this helpful flavor chart.

I decided that I wanted to include some sort of fruit in the cookie and ended up narrowing it down to these four: apple, fig, guava, or raspberry. The deciding factor in which fruit to choose ended up being based on the supply that was readily available for me to choose from at the Dinkytown Target. I was able to find whole apples as well as a strawberry spread, which works well with raspberry and brie according to the chart. I figured the sweet strawberry spread would compliment the brie very well. I was also originally going to add basil but I couldn’t find any at Target and decided to buy mint instead.

Brainstorming process

Idea 1 Test

For my first idea I wanted to keep it relatively simple with an emphasis on the honey baked brie because I felt that was the most interesting ingredient. It seemed like a good place to start because it allowed me to see how well the brie tasted on its own before going further with the idea.

I started out by placing two pieces of the cookie dough on the baking sheet and used my (washed) hands and the back end of a spoon to hollow out the center enough so that there was a sizable impression in the dough. I then cut out a piece of brie and folded it together so that it would fit inside the hole in the dough. I then squeezed out a good amount of honey on top of the brie so I could be sure that the flavor of the honey would properly bake into the cookie.

I proceeded to place the cookies in the oven and cooked them at 350°F for about 20 minutes. When I took the cookies out of the oven, I lathered the strawberry spread on the bottom of the cookie that didn’t have the brie baked into it and placed mint leaves on the spread. I then put the two pieces together to form a cookie sandwich.

The two halves of the cookie
The finished product of Idea 1

This idea turned out much better than I expected, both aesthetically and in terms of flavor. I had found a really good base to build my cookie from and continued to brainstorm ideas on how to improve it.


Idea 2 Test

With my second version of the cookie, I wanted to be a little more experimental to see what tweaks could be made that could be added to the cookie to make it as tasty and interesting as possible.

I wanted to experiment with having the brie mostly on one side of the cookie, almost like a chocolate dipped cookie so I pushed it a little to one side of the dough before putting it in the oven.

And it worked! Kind of. The brie was more concentrated on one side of the cookie, however it ended up getting a little burnt because of that so I decided that particular idea wouldn’t make the cut for the final cookie. On the bright side, it did help me learn how to gauge how much brie to put in the cookie and how centered it had to be to get it right.

Another problem I decided to improve with this version of the cookie was its texture. The first cookie was good, but the texture was a little bit monotone and I figured something crunchy was needed to spice things up a bit, figuratively of course. That’s when I decided to put a slice of apple in the middle of the sandwich just to see what would happen… this idea was a keeper. The crunchy and juicy texture of the apple complimented the softness and smoothness of the brie and the strawberry spread and also accented the slightly more chewy sugar cookie base.

The apple was a solid improvement that significantly added to my previous cookie and worked very well with all of the ingredients. Now I knew how I wanted to make my cookie, I just needed to make a few tweaks…


Iteration

In order to perfect my cookie, I had to mix all of my filler flavors and find out how to blend them perfectly.

I came to the conclusion that the strawberry spread was a little overpowering and that I needed to reduce the volume of the spread while still covering the area of the whole cookie to maintain the look. I also decided that it would benefit the balance of the cookie to cut thinner slices of apple and lay them over the spread instead of just throwing on a thick slice. Thus, I was able to create a more compact cookie that looks good AND tastes good.


Timeline

Tuesday, 9/4/18 … Set up Medium account, begin brainstorming

Wednesday, 9/5/18 … **Outline & timeline DUE**, continue brainstorming

Thursday, 9/6/18 … Brainstorm cookie ideas, begin researching types of cookies, flavors, baking methods, friends’ preferences, etc.

Friday, 9/7/18 … Choose top 2 ideas, buy ingredients for baking

Saturday, 9/8/18 … Test Ideas 1 & 2, taste test with friends

Sunday, 9/9/18 … Make adjustments to recipe, finalize cookie

Monday, 9/10/18 … Bake final cookie, add documentation to blog

Tuesday, 9/11/18 … Finish blog post

Wednesday, 9/12/18 … **Blog post DUE**, bake fresh dozen of cookies for class

Thursday, 9/13/18 … Bring cookies to class

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