Cookies
Final Idea: After the gutter overflowed into my basement dwelling and left a moldy residue, inspiration struck in the form of Clogged Gutter Peanut Butter Cookies. While these cookies may look like a clogged gutter, they taste infinitely better and are far less stressful to deal with. Its simple construction methods and accurate edible recreation of a clogged gutter make it a unique cookie, suitable for consumption, no matter the level of water damage to your home.


Recipe (Makes 12)
Equipment:

- Two knives (one for spreading peanut butter mix,one for cutting the graham crackers)
- A napkin
- Mixing bowl
- Fork
Ingredients:
- Six Graham Crackers (Assuming the graham crackers are in what seems to be the standard perforated 2x2 array of rectangles)
- Peanut Butter (A quarter of a jar should be more than enough)
- Raisins
- Crunchy Chocolate Granola Bar
- Any other toppings that resemble whatever may clog your gutter
Recipe
- Place a quarter of a jar of peanut butter into the bowl.
- Ground up the granola bar and put it directly into the peanut butter. Mix lightly with the fork until chocolate bits are not visibly obviously in the mix.
- Add raisins and mix until a crunchy peanut butter texture is achieved. Set the bowl off to the side.
- Break your six graham crackers along their perforated edges. Set aside half of them. If you want your gutter to look newer and not old and cracked like mine, be very careful in cutting the crackers to that the gutter sides don’t shatter!
- Apply your peanut-butter-granola-raisin “dirt” to the graham crackers that you did not slice in half with a knife.
- Use the cast aside graham cracker bits to create the walls of the gutter by placing them vertically along the side of each graham cracker top. You made need to push these cracker-chunks against the sides of the peanut butter until they stick.
- If you would like, you can put them in the fridge, but otherwise, feel free to serve them.
- Enjoy your clogged gutter!
Idea Generation: Out of respect for these cookie ideas that never came to be, I would like to list them all here as a funeral service. While many of these cookies had a great deal of potential, the cause of their death will be listed to make sure that no one is too angry at me for not bringing them to fruition.
Here is a round of Taps for all the cookies that I felt were uninspired.


Now let’s play a respectful dirge for the ideas that were creative but would have tasted disgusting (but maybe not to everyone!).


We’re giving this one a contemplative ambient piece for its sendoff.

Finally, a moment of silence for the two “bowl cookie” ideas that were creative but not very exciting before we move on to discuss my two cookie tests.


Test 1:
I suppose my excitement for the concept of Springer cookies overshadowed what I should have seen coming: my lack of culinary skills getting in the way.

After the parade of worse ideas that was my idea generation above, I headed to my kitchen eager to begin mixing together Sprite, Ginger Ale, frosting, and Red Vine “springs” that would fulfill their destiny and complete the portmanteau pun of this cookie’s namesake.

There was one problem, however: the Sprite-and-Ginger-ale cookie bases did not look very appetizing after I pulled them out of the oven. In defense of the recipe, my culinary skills are just as, if not more, likely to be the culprit of the botched product. Regardless, the ashy tray of destroyed Springer cookies will be speaks volumes about why I needed to change my cookie plan to something within my grasp, baking skills-wise.
Test 2: The idea for Clogged Gutter Peanut Butter Cookies came to me after I walked down to my basement to get ready for bed after successfully botching the Springer cookies. With a hint of mold smell invading my room, it became hard to separate the housing problem from the cookie think tank. Eventually, I managed to reconcile the two in a rather crude but creative manner: I sketched a cookie imitating the look of the clogged gutter above.


Iteration: After making a few Clogged Gutter Peanut Butter cookies, I realized that they weren’t as visually pleasing as they could be. In the interest of making them look more like a gutter, I changed the flat, graham cracker tile to a fully fledged gutter. Before calling it quits, I also made multiple batches of the “dirt” until I had the perfect ratio in terms of quality flavor and texture. This gave birth to the final form of Clogged Gutter Peanut Butter Cookies you see today!

Timeline:
September 4th-5th: The cookie ideation and research process: I will jot down ideas and use various resources to come up with my new cookie flavor.
September 6th: I will choose the best of my ideas and refine it.
September 7–8th: Using the research from before, I will jot down what I believe to be a suitable recipe for these cookies.
September 9th: I will make a few tweaks to the recipe before baking a batch.
September 10th: I will make the first prototype batch and document what should be changed.
September 11th: I make a second batch and put the finishing touches on the recipe.
September 12th: Taking both batches into account, I make the final batch of cookies and publish the refined recipe and writeup.
September 13th: I present the cookies.
