Hello! And cookies!

I would not call myself a baker, but here I am baking things without following predetermined recipes. For the past couple of months I've been experimenting with baking my own cookies, cakes, quick breads, pancakes, etc. In this blog I'll be posting about my baking experiments, trials and errors, and recipes that I come up with on the spot. Eventually I'll move on to harder stuff that I've never made on my own before... Pies? Eclairs? Flan?

My questions have usually been things like

"What is a cupcake?"

"How can I still make this even though I only own a jar of mayonnaise and some powdered sugar?"

"How can I make this thing at least mostly vegan?"

I aim to find out, or fail while trying to find out!

So to start off this blog, here is what I made today.

White Chocolate Green Tea Cookies

Okay so here's what I decided my ingredients should be:

Sugar
Flour (I happen to have whole wheat)
Baking soda
Baking powder
Smart Balance Buttery Sticks (can be butter, margarine, etc)
Nestle Toll House "Premiere White" Morsels
One banana (instead of an egg! Why not?)
Matcha green tea powder (Maeda-En brand)
Vanilla (mine happens to be imitation)

*Note: these could easily be made vegan by using vegan margarine and vegan chips (or no chips)*

The bag of white chocolate chips is open because I immediately started eating them after I bought them from the grocery store today.

Here's what I did:

I preheated the oven to 325-350-ish

I cut up the one banana.

I added half a stick of the Smart Balance (cut up).

 

I mashed them together, then added some vanilla.

 

Then I added 1/3 cup of sugar and mixed those.

*I decided to add an impromptu 1/3-ish cup of lightly smushed brown sugar as well.*

 

 

Mixed those, then added approximately 1 1/2 tsp of the matcha powder.

Mmm, doesn't that look appetizing.

I added about 1/2 tsp baking soda...

and a little less baking powder for some reason. These measurements are a little arbitrary...

 I added in total about 3/4 cup of the wheat flour, mixing it in little by little. I'd say go until you think it has enough of a cookie-dough-esque consistency.

 I added a little under 2/3 cup of the white chocolate morsels,

mixed that...

and then put little clumps on a lightly oiled baking sheet.

I set the oven for 10 minutes and put them in.

After 10 minutes, I realized I must have set the temperature too high! I turned the oven down to slightly under 325 and put them back in for a few more minutes.

And the verdict:

 

 These taste pretty good. But, I may have added too much sugar. But for the most part, these are moist and slightly chewy but not too dense cookies with a vanilla-green tea flavor. I think the banana made them more moist than they would have been if I used an egg.

They are not the prettiest cookies, but that's probably because of the brownish wheat flour mixed with the green matcha powder.

The good thing about hideous cookies is that you can spice up the decor to make them even more hideous looking (or beautiful??). On top of this breenish lump, why not add some blue gel, or pink sprinkles? Real pritty!

For next time...maybe I'd make these with powdered sugar? Could give them a different texture. Also maybe I would use white flour...but these still taste good with the wheat flour. Also I'd set these to 325 degrees for the whole time!

Makes a baker's dozen (or more) cookies.
Bake these at 325 for about 12 minutes.

 

If anyone wants to try making these let me know what you think! Again this is the first time I've tested this recipe seeing as I invented it just now.