Cookie Thursday is a Thing has a new theme for September. The days are marginally getting cooler, kids are back in school, I’m back in school. I’ve not baked a cookie for cookie’s sake for 4 months! That is way too long.
First, we had inflation baking in May. This was in reaction to the inflation, especially around food and I baked vintage recipes from the 1930s. No butter or eggs was the main thing. The impossible cakes that I turned into cookies.
It was so popular, and inflation was so overwhelming, and I still had so many inflation baking recipes that the theme repeated in June. And I learned a lot.
And then the Dobbs decision came down from the Supreme Court. This kind of branded women as being worth only what our uteri could produce. And told us that we had less than no value. And If You Want Women to be in the 18th Century so Badly… July theme was created. Cookies and bakes from the 18th century. Learned some more interesting things. I love looking things up. Am I still mad as hell about this. You better fucking believe it. Me and more than half the country.
And August. August is hot here in the South. Too hot to put on the oven. For seven years this month has traditionally been no heat month and I don’t turn on the oven at all. And it is the month of the Back to School Ice Cream Social that the entire department is supposed to participate in. Good idea in theory, and when I was there every day I could exhort and prod people to participate. Yeah.
It is now September and I want to have fun with Cookie Thursday is a Thing. And bake things that I’ve been missing over the last 4 months. It’s going to be a blast. I just hope the cost of butter comes down. Cookie Thursday has always been done on my own dime.
First up in this 5 Thursday month is one of the original recipes I created for Cookie Thursday is a Thing- the watermelon cooler. Lemon cooler is a cookie that exists, and lime cooler, but I thought, what about watermelon. There is not a fruit that screams summer to me more than watermelon. Which both is and isn’t a subtle flavor that plays well. But watermelon itself does not mesh well with cookies as it is much too wet.
Trader Joe’s had a watermelon jelly. This made a good starting point. And I looked for a watermelon extract; I mean something has to be in all the watermelon candies. And it exists! And watermelon itself is very juicy, perhaps I can use a couple of tablespoons of it in the recipe. And I didn’t want a tremendously sweet cookie as some watermelon candies tend to be. A mix of powdered sugar and cane sugar solved that.
And the watermelon cooler recipe was born. Not too sweet, not too overwhelming a watermelon flavor because that can be bad.
At the very bottom of the gown card I put the recipe on is a note. Try with feta.
Well.
Interesting.
There was a salad that made the rounds last year of watermelon and feta with a bit of balsamic dressing. It is amazing. If you’ve never had it, go and make some right now!
I knew I wanted to at least try feta in the watermelon dough. But not the entire batch, just a cookie sheet worth of cookies.
I baked four cookie sheets of cookies, carefully reserving some for this little experiment.
To the reserved dough, which was about 1.5 c of dough, I added 1/8 c of feta. Can’t wait to see how this turns out.
Experimentation is the name of the game with Cookie Thursday is a Thing.
Will report back later.
Dispatches from the Evening Shift 