Inventive Baking Ideas Sought for Imaginary Cookies (A Mostly Nonsense Post)

[radiantfracture]

Do you anxiety bake? Does stirring batter induce a soothing flow state in you? Me too!

I also love autogenerated and random language poetry. I don't know what the connection might be. Anyway, here's a mostly nonsensical project.

I'd really quite like to derive real recipes for the imaginary cookies generated by the AI in the latest AI Weirdness post, particularly the following:

• Lord's Honey Fight (which sounds DELICIOUS)
• Fluffin Coffee Drops
• Quitterbread Bars (v. Harry Pottery)
• Merry Hunga Poppers
• Hand Buttersacks
• Hallowy Maples (also delicious)
• Apricot Dream Moles

If a recipe arises that seems workable, I will undertake to make it over the winter break and post the results.

Any thoughts or inspirations? How do the names work for you as prompts for sense-images and baking algorithms?






(All images originally from AI Weirdness)

First Reflections on Imaginary Cookies

The drawing in the post for Lord's Honey Fight shows a sort of cinnamon-roll-esque device. I think that's clever, but I'm not sure it's grand enough for a Lord's Honey Fight. Might that be a big pan of bars like a delicious, delicious field of mediaeval battle?

I'm thinking Fluffin Coffee Drops could be whipped shortbread with coffee flavouring. (I don't love whipped shortbread, but with coffee and a flurky name, maybe.)

Hallowy maples I see more or less as just a dish of cookie full of maple syrup. Maybe maple butter tarts (a real thing I had once and have never forgotten).

I was actually given a jar of homemade apricot jam that seems ideal for Apricot Dream Moles.

{rf}

Comments

[monanotlisa]

LOL. Yes!

It's weird, isn't it? You and I and countless others find baking endlessly calming, whereas people like my sister find kitchen activities anxiety-inducing in and by themselves. I'm anxious about so many things I do...except kitchen-related ones.

[isis]

Fistbump! After every vacation where I have to eat out in restaurants ALL THE TIME, being able to cook for myself again is such a joy!

[isis]

What's whipped shortbread vs regular shortbread?

Fluffin Coffee Drops, to me, are obviously coffee-flavored mini-meringues.

[radiantfracture]

Whipped shortbread is what some people seem to think is shortbread, and is made with icing sugar.

Proper shortbread contains only brown sugar, butter, flour and one egg yolk, and is made by my mother.

[isis]

Proper shortbread contains only brown sugar, butter, flour and one egg yolk, and is made by my mother.

FYP. This is the recipe

(icing sugar? WTF? Yuck.)

(okay sometimes I add rosemary and pine nuts)

[radiantfracture]

Ha.

The egg yolk version actually comes from the Fannie Farmer cookbook, and is our family tradition, so I will have to die on that hill of buttery goodness.

[wendelah1]

I have the 1990 edition, revised by Marion Cunningham, which doesn't have your family's recipe, I am sad to say.

[radiantfracture]

I think the edition was my grandmother's, originally, and dates from the mid-fifties. I'll check when I visit later this month. It's a hardback with a softly gleaming gold cover.

I covet it -- I have a later edition, but it's not at all the same.

It's very simple -- my mom and I have a standing joke where I ask her for the recipe again every year.

Shortbread

1 c butter
1/2 c brown sugar
2 c flour (give or take)
1 egg yolk

Do the usual things, but add the flour gradually until the consistency is "like putty" and don't let any other liquid get in. Roll out about 1/4" thick and cut with a cookie cutter into rustic seasonal shapes. Bake at 325 F.

Don't overhandle and don't add too much flour.

* * * * * *

I can see the point of the cornstarch, but I've never liked the soft whippy shortbread compared to the solid slabs of my youth.

[wendelah1]

Looking through my recipe collection and the internet baking sites, icing sugar isn't that uncommon a choice. The Fanny Farmer Baking Book (1984 ed. by Marion Cunningham--damn but I'm old) has three versions: one made with confectioner's sugar, one with white sugar, and one with brown.

My favorite recipe, which I got from the daughter of a patient I took care of (I still have her handwritten copy), uses regular sugar but adds a quarter cup of cornstarch/4 cups of flour. It tenderizes the cookie a bit, I think, and I assume that's why some bakers (and eaters) prefer using icing sugar.

[radiantfracture]

icing sugar isn't that uncommon a choice

I am sure they are perfectly nice cookies for someone.

[radiantfracture]

coffee-flavored mini-meringues

This is by far the superior solution.

[sovay]

but I'm not sure it's grand enough for a Lord's Honey Fight. Might that be a big pan of bars like a delicious, delicious field of mediaeval battle?

Agreed. I thought of it layered and on fire, à la le Talleyrand.

I'm thinking Fluffin Coffee Drops could be whipped shortbread with coffee flavouring.

I live in Somerville, so I assumed the presence of marshmallow or meringue.

Hallowy maples I see more or less as just a dish of cookie full of maple syrup.

"Hallowy" makes me assume autumn, so I want cinnamon and nutmeg flavorings. (Do not say pumpkin spice.)

I was actually given a jar of homemade apricot jam that seems ideal for Apricot Dream Moles.

If not jam, glazed apricots. But jam should be great.

[intertext]

I had exactly the same Harry Potter response to Quitterbread Bars! And mmm maple butter tarts sound wonderful

[radiantfracture]

Would Quitterbread bars be something you made with yeast, as in you started to make bread and then quit halfway through and made bars?

[marycatelli]

I think it's bars that you quit whatever you're doing to eat.

[derien]

They've got to be somewhat breadlike bars, though.

[marycatelli]

Why? Mincemeat isn't like meat, and neither is a sweatmeat. It's sweetbreads that are meat.

[radiantfracture]

I don't quite fancy a dessert made with pancreas.

Although

{Googles "pancreas dessert"}

No.

...one that's pancreas-friendly would be all right. Even desirable.

N.B. Mincemeat did originally contain actual meat. So the SuperSizers tell me.

[derien]

My grandfather used to make real mincemeat, with venison.

[radiantfracture]

I think it's bars that you quit whatever you're doing to eat.

Elegantly done.

In my case that would involve chocolate, then, though our illustrator seems to imagine, I dunno, white cake and butterscotch? Mango? Orange?

[elusis]

No, Quitterbread Bars are clearly pieces of Wonderbread, spread with chocolate icing from a can, slapped together, cut into "bars," and handed to your kid because who can be arsed to actually bake anyway?

[sabotabby]

I absolutely anxiety bake. It's one of the best things for my anxiety.

I would use apricot jam, whipped aquafaba, coconut cream, and shortbread to make small rounded Apricot Dream Moles.

[radiantfracture]

I had to look up aquafaba, so now I know a thing. Also this is a thing I could eat with fewer consequences, which pleases.

[sabotabby]

It really works! I made Pisco sours and meringues with it, and both turned out just like it would have with egg whites. Actually I think the meringues were slightly easier, as I didn't have to fish out bits of yolk.

[radiantfracture]

How's the flavour?

[sabotabby]

It's been awhile since I ate egg, but roughly the same? But this was for things where the egg whites are a neutral taste but important for texture; Pisco sour should taste of Pisco and lemon, not egg, and my meringues tasted of sugar and mint. I did accidentally drink egg-based Pisco sours in Peru, because they told me they were just made out of alcohol and lemonade, and mine tasted basically the same. I don't think you could use aquafaba as a substitute for things that are supposed to taste eggy, though I could be wrong. It's really quite miraculous.

[derien]

Merry Hunga Poppers have to be about 1.5 inches in diameter and full of nuts and berries.

[radiantfracture]

So noted. I also had this radical suggestion: "meringues flavoured with raspberry Jello powder with pop rocks folded in."

[notyourwendy]

Whelp, I was going to make peppermint meringues this Christmas, but now I have to make these.

[radiantfracture]

PLEASE DO THIS

There's at least a 50% chance that I will also attempt it.

[notyourwendy]

Challenge accepted!

No promises on raspberry - I'm more likely to go with orange. Oh god. Biohazard orange meringues with pop rocks in them. I may not make it until Christmas.

[radiantfracture]

Heh.

I think any flavour that a) makes you feel merry or b) satisfied hunga would be considered valid.

[notyourwendy]

I may be down to 'whatever flavor I can find pop-rocks in'. Gonna have to hit up an actual candy store sometime soon.

[elusis]

This is clearly the correct answer. Nestled on top of candy mint leaves.

[derien]

That sounds... interesting. But wouldn't address the word 'hunga.' If I was hungry that would throw me into sugar shock. ;)

[radiantfracture]

You are a close reader after my own heart.

[derien]

"Merry" could be addressed by using pistachio nuts for green and cranberries for red.

[agoodwinsmith]

No, see, I'm pretty good at flinging together a tasty supper out of what's in the kitchen. If I have some fat, and an onion, and a fry pan, I can get to stroganoff or eggplant parmesan or scabbage or parsnip+chestnut soup, depending on what's in the kitchen. And if something that I thought would be good is missing, there's usually a work-around. But baking.

Baking requires precise measurments, and crucial ingredients, and there's no winging it on a salt-lick and a prayer. And *even* *when* you have measured carefully, and pre-calibrated your oven, and blocked off all drafts - things can still come out stodgy as a very stodgy thing. Also, I do not have a light touch. My muffins are soggy hockey pucks. My pastry is tough like boot leather. The only thing I am moderately good at is shortbread, which permits enthusiastic pummeling.

[radiantfracture]

I can't say everything turns out brilliant here either, but I have had, historically, a pretty low threshhold for what sugar-containing substances count as edible.

Hallowy Maples

[notyourwendy]

If you substitute all or most of the sugar for maple syrup when making homemade marshmallows, they come out quite tasty.

Re: Hallowy Maples

[radiantfracture]

Oh my god.








That sounds extraordinary.

Re: Hallowy Maples

[notyourwendy]

They are. We used to double batch them and then eat a 9x13 pan's worth. They come out a little softer than regular marshmallows, so they need more powdered sugar to keep them from sticking to each other.

Re: Hallowy Maples

[radiantfracture]

I have purchased the maple syrup, so I'm committed now.

The nice thing is that they're Hallows, not Marshmallows, so if they turn out soft that's how they're supposed to be.

[elusis]

Hand buttersacks are clearly some kind of sweet analogue to soup dumplings, but with a runny brown-butter caramel inside some kind of heavily buttered dough. Or perhaps puff pastry or phyllo purses?

Alternatively, they could be some sort of candy with a butterscotch liqueur center, perhaps white and brown chocolate truffles in the shape of fists?