Cookies
Final Idea + Recipe
Pairing the exotic tanginess of curry with a rich peanut butter cookie base sprinkled with sweet shredded carrots, I present the jarringly familiar (yet never been baked before)— Peanut Curry Carrot Cookie.

Peanut Curry Carrot Cookies
- 1 cup butter
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 6 tbsp. peanut butter
- 2 1/2 cups flour
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 2 tsp. curry powder
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1 1/2 cup grated carrots
Pre-heat oven to 350°F. Combine butter, sugar and brown sugar in a bowl. Beat at medium speed until creamy, incorporating peanut butter until well mixed. Then mix in flour, baking soda, curry powder and salt. Stir in carrots.
Drop dough by small rounded spoonfuls onto greased cookie sheets. Bake 12 minutes. Cool completely.
Enjoy.
Idea Generation
I was wildly inspired by the challenge of this assignment and was ready to get my hands dirty baking cookies from the get-go.
My initial inclination was to create a savory cookie. Surely, cookies are meant to tickle the sweet tooth so it wouldn’t be that difficult to invent a brand new cookie that wasn’t sweet, right? Wrong.
I made the mistake of hopping online a little too quickly. One google search for “savory cookie” already had me doubting I could ever bake something truly unique, especially when there were 29,800,000 search results at my fingertips.
A little discouraged, I flew to my notebook like any good designer would and began to document my thoughts, hopes, and frustrations (and even more things I wanted to google).

Jotting down some thoughts eventually led me to the brilliant idea of condensing an entire meal down to an experience in a cookie. Although I did not wish to pursue my dream of a Thanksgiving meal cookie as my notes suggest (complete with turkey bits and cranberries!), I wound up thinking about what kinds of ingredients make meals great.

It was after a few more days of thinking and sleeping on the idea that I finally landed on the first concept I was going to test out: peanut curry carrot cookies.

Idea 1 Test
Inspired by the sweet and savory quality of peanut butter, and how effortlessly it pairs with curry and carrot (both individually), I decided to tie together all three in this concept. I’ve always been a fan of the carrot cake, and peanut curry, so why not combine those culinary experiences into a singular cookie! A quick google search did not find anything similar to the recipe I wanted to make. I found curry cookies, peanut butter carrot cookies, but not a recipe with peanut, carrot, and curry altogether.
I adapted the Carrot Cake Cookies recipe from Land O’Lakes, substituting in peanut butter for the eggs (how cool is that?!). I learned about that substitution technique to save me a trip to the grocery store, but it also made it possible to incorporate the peanut butter into my dough.



I am beyond ecstatic to report that my first batch of the Peanut Curry Carrot cookies were a success! I could not believe how real they tasted. I feared that my flavors would not pair correctly nor that the basic chemistry of my recipe was somehow altered and the cookies wouldn’t turn out. My anxieties were relieved when my roommates sampled the cookies I had made and nodded their heads. “Tastes good,” they said, chowing down on the sweet and tangy chewiness. One even grabbed a second cookie. I’ll take that as a compliment.
I made sure to document my thoughts about the ideal cookie size, bake time, whether or not I should include a sriracha drizzle, or smash the cookies before they go in the oven. Those were just a few more of the questions / variations I tested out all in this round.


Idea 2 Test
To be honest, I was dreading testing out another idea since I was so satisfied with my Peanut Curry Carrot cookies. However, inspiration struck when I wanted to use a similar flavor pallet but in a different format: a no-bake cookie.
I thought about using oats as my main ingredient, but I decided to get a little crafty and use crushed ramen noodles for my base to make this recipe even more unique. I found a recipe online for ramen-no bake cookies which used peanut butter and chocolate. I opted for peanut butter and sriracha hot pepper sauce to give these cookies a delightful Thai spin, similar to the flavors of my first cookie concept.
Adapting my recipe from a no-bake cookie from Smuckers, I swapped out the oats for crushed ramen. Additionally, I omitted the vanilla and added in a table spoon of sriracha.


I threw all my ingredients together on the stove, proud of this recipe’s ease. All the ingredients were essentially things I kept in my small dorm room freshman year.
Again, my flavors came together nicely. The peanut butter was sweet and creamy, especially when heated with the sugar, and the sriracha provided a surprising kick. All was great, except when it came time for the cookies to cool and set— they did not. I’m not sure if the ramen noodles were not malleable enough of a substance for the peanut butter mixture to cling to, or if I did not heat the mixture enough. But I ended up with small piles of goop that refused to harden, even when left in the refrigerator to cool for hours.


Iteration
Although after testing out two different ideas (one for a more traditional baked cookie, and one that was no-bake with dry ingredients) and thoroughly enjoying the flavors of both, I decided to take my first idea all the way for this challenge. I ran a few side experiments during my initial test batch with cookie shape and decoration (flat, bigger cookies vs. smaller thick ones), so I learned how to master it. I was not confident enough to try preparing a second batch of the ramen cookies, because I was blinded by the confidence I and excitement I held for the first batch.
To perfect my recipe, as mentioned before, I chose not to 1) smash the cookies before baking (the recipe I based my process around was indeed for a “drop-cookie”, which doesn’t need to be shaped further from a ball), and 2) not include a sriracha drizzle on top (it tasted and looked gross).
Additionally, I toyed around with the idea of halving my recipe for further batches (although the math gets kind of iffy, so I decided against that idea again), and decided to make the cookies small.

And my final batch was a success! I am ready to share these cookies with the class and receive further feedback on my creation. A bake time of 12 minutes was perfect for this recipe, too.

Timeline
- Tuesday, September 4th: Intake challenge and guidelines of the “Create a new cookie” assignment. Start thinking of the various directions this project could manifest.
- Thursday, September 6th: Start the preliminary brainstorming process and begin documenting it in the design journal. Start recording all thoughts, inspiration, and questions as they come up. Take the questions online and begin researching for further answers and/or more inspiration.
- Friday, September 7th: Continue sketching and recording thoughts in the design journal. Augment research findings of cookies that have already been produced/published.
- Saturday, September 8th: Start developing the new cookie recipe.
- Sunday, September 10th: Bake a trial batch of the new cookie. Taste test, record personal thoughts, and run samples with roommates/friends. Revise cookie recipe as needed.
- Monday, September 10th: Bake second trial batch with the revised recipe. Sample with roommates/friends. Make changes as necessary.
- Tuesday, September 11th: Begin blogging about the ideating and baking process. Organize and edit photographs taken throughout the process.
- Wednesday, September 12th: Finalize and publish blog post, complete with body copy, cookie recipe, and photos from the entire process. Bake a final batch of cookies to share with the class.
- Thursday, September 13th: Share cookies in class, receive feedback and explore other new recipes from my peers.