cookies
Final Idea + Recipe
My final cookie creation is called the “Afterburner cookie” which is a red pepper, lime, and avocado flavored sugar cookie that is baked into two different shapes which are then assembled into a 3D rocket. I named them “afterburner” cookies because of the slight heat you feel in your mouth from the crushed red pepper after eating one. The word ‘afterburner” is also a term used in rocketry which ties into the shape of the cookie.

I feel the overarching theme of this cookie in its taste, shape, and name form a creative idea. The red pepper-lime-avocado flavor combination is something I have never heard of, and also one I could not find online. The 3D rocket shape I used turned out not to be brand new to the cookie world, however the combination of this 3D shape along with the new taste and unusual name creates a novel combination of ideas.
Afterburner Cookies recipe:
- 1-1/4 cup white sugar
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 1 mashed avacado
- 2 eggs
- 3-1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
- 1 large lime (use all juice and zest)
- 1–1/2 tablespoons crushed red pepper
Idea Generation
I started my idea generation thinking that coming up with a new way to present a cookie would be easier than starting off with a new recipe. My very first idea came from the instructor stating we could not “smear a Lego block in chocolate” to pass off as a new type of cookie. Hearing that I thought doing that might make for an interesting cookie idea, and quickly jotted down ways of how to make that a possible cookie.

As I thought more about the classic flat-round shape of cookies I had the idea of trying to create a three dimensional (3D) cookie. I have made 3D models out of flat cardboard cutouts before, and decided that would be a fun direction to take the presentation of my cookie. For some reason a rocket model was what came to mind and so that’s what i stuck with for this idea.

During my idea generation I also had the idea of making a peanut butter and jelly flavored and shaped cookie. Unfortunately after researching the idea a bit online I saw that the idea had already been used a fair amount, and because of that decided to drop that idea.

Once the weekend began i wanted to get some physical progress done, and I decided to switch my idea generation focus from shape to taste. I started by thinking of food flavors that either I haven’t, or I rarely have seen for cookie flavors. The two that came to mind first were pistachio and avocado flavors, so i began brainstorming flavor combos focused around those two flavors while also jotting down different ideas that came to me in between. I didn’t have time to test every idea I came up with so I selected three flavor ideas that I thought had the best chance of being tasty and interesting, and got to work on making them.


Idea Test 1
One cookie I tested was a mint, orange, and pistachio flavored cookie. The unique ingredients in this cookie were crushed pistachio, orange extract, mint extract, and french vanilla Jello pudding. I had originally wanted to test this idea with pistachio Jello pudding to get more pistachio flavor and color the cookies green, but I forgot to buy it while at the store so I substituted in french vanilla pudding since I had it around.

Taste-wise these cookies turned out to be my favorite. The orange and pistachio worked really well together for me, and the mint flavor came out more as a refreshing and nicely unexpected aftertaste. The Jello pudding in these made the dough really sticky and the cookies came out of the oven with a texture that was soft, fluffy, and bouncy without feeling chewy. Unfortunately that nice texture created a problem for my cookie presentation. I was already leaning towards the 3D rocket cookie shape, and the softness of these cookies made shaping them and standing them on end difficult. I was able to get the shape to work with them, but only by making the cookie larger than my hand which was too large for the restrictions on this assignment and would’ve needed a lot of batter to make 12 of them.

While I liked the taste and texture of these cookies, the difficulty of shaping them and my eventual idea of the “afterburner” theme swayed me away from this cookie idea. However if I do make these cookies again I’m going to be more generous with the mint and orange extract as I really enjoyed that flavor combination.
Idea Test 2
Another cookie idea tested was a chai, apricot, and pistachio flavored oatmeal cookie. The unique ingredients in this cookie were chopped pistachio, chopped dried apricot, ground cinnamon, ground ginger, ground cardamom, ground allspice, and ground black pepper. This cookie idea came from crossing two different flavors of cookie I wanted to make which were chai and pistachio.

The taste of these cookies turned out to be really good, however wasn’t very unique tasting to me. The flavors blended well, but seemed to cover each other up rather than coexist or heighten each other. The oatmeal and apricot chunks were also an issue when I was trying to roll and cut the cookie batter into the shapes I needed to make the 3D rocket by making the batter lumpy and hard to cut. So this was an idea attempt I was happy with, bu due to cookies tasting similar to a regular raisin-oatmeal sugar cookie, and the difficulty in trying to shape the batter, i decided not to use this recipe for my final cookie.
Idea Test 3
The cookie idea that ended up being the choice for my final cookie is red pepper, lime, and avocado sugar cookie. This flavor combo originated from wanting to make an avocado flavored cookie. Unfortunately avocado cookies are already a thing, however I didn't see much for flavor combination involving avocado cookies so I went online to find out what flavors went well with avocado in other foods. One combination that caught my eye was a chili, lime, and avocado combination. And while I didn't have any chili powder to through into my cookies, i did have crushed red pepper and decided to use that as a substitute.

When i tasted the first batch of these cookies I immediately liked the spice feeling from the crushed red pepper. I thought that spice a fun feeling to get from a cookie since its not something I would’ve ever expected a cookie to have in its taste palate. I also believed the ingredient combination worked well in the sense that the red pepper gave enough zing for me to consider it to have a spice, but it wasn’t overpowering in any way and I was still able to taste the lime and sugar in the cookie. The dough was also both easiest to roll and cut, and baked into the most rigid shape out of my three cookie ideas. This made them ideal for my 3D rocket presentation idea.
One thing I didn’t like however, was that I wasn’t able to taste anything of the avocado. After going through some prototyping and adjusting my cookie to be both as creative and easy to make as possible I mixed up a second batch. And while I liked the taste of the first batch I wanted to try and make the avocado more pronounced in the taste and increase the lime flavor. So for the second batch i doubled the lime juice and zest, added another half of an avocado, lowered the sugar amount, and doubled the red pepper because i liked the spice. Unfortunately, lowering the sugar amount and increasing the avocado amount did not make the avocado taste come out any stronger, and i decided not to increase the avocado further for fear of ruining my batter’s consistency. However, the addition of more lime and red pepper both did what I intended of increasing the lime taste and adding more spice.
While making these cookies is when the “afterburner” theme came into my mind. The taste of these cookies, along with the right consistency for shaping the cookies into rockets and thinking of the theme, are what pushed me to choosing these cookies as the ones I wanted to present for this assignment.
Iteration
The original shape and build of my 3D rocket cookies was significantly more complex than what I ended up with. As seen in the image below the original idea was comprised of 6 pieces that showed more detailed curvature and shape in what would’ve been the upright pieces.

Upon testing those upright pieces however, it was clear that none of my cookie ideas were going to hold that shape after baking. The slots meant for piecing together the rocket closed up, and the overall shape of the rocket didn’t hold up after baking them.

So I began thinking/researching ways to simplify the shape, and possible alternative presentation ideas in case i had to ditch the 3D rocket idea entirely. My idea for researching different ways to make this 3D shape simpler included looking at cardboard cut and slot techniques online, and luckily I saw something that led me to find a way to significantly reduce the complexity of my rocket shape while still getting it to stand upright. I immediately sketched the idea into my notebook, then went to try and bake cookies into that new shape to see how it worked out.

This new design turned out to be easier to roll and cut out of the batter, baked into the desired shape more consistently, and still let my cookie stand upright. As I baked more cookies, this new design also allowed me to shrink my cookies down to a more manageable size than i was working with before which is another benefit of the design.

At the end of my testing and prototyping, this switch to the simplified design made my cookies faster and easier to make while still retaining my original idea of having 3D rockets.
Timeline:
- Tuesday 9/5/18: Get design notebook and make assignment outline and timeline.
- Wednesday 9/6/18: Research, brainstorm, and gather materials
- Thursday 9/7/18: Research, brainstorm, and gather materials
- Friday 9/8/18: Research, brainstorm, and gather materials. Begin narrowing down best ideas to test.
- Weekend 9/9/18–9/10/18: Get baking and test most promising ideas. By the end of Sunday have a cookie to use for the assignment.
- Monday 9/11/18: Finalize cookie recipe/apearence/texture and begin working on blog post.
- Tuesday 9/12/18: Finish blog post for assignment.
- Wednesday 9/13/18: Bake cookies for class on Thursday.
