Friday, December 31, 2010

DIY Oreo Disaster

For just about all of December, I get insane cravings for the chocolate/peppermint combo. Peppermint mochas, peppermint hot chocolate, peppermint bark (not my favorite, actually, because I cannot stand white chocolate)...they're all great, but nothing comes CLOSE to the elusive Candy Cane Oreos, and their OMG-EVEN-BETTER cousin, Candy Cane Joe-Joes.

This year, I somewhat unintentionally held off. Being in the city, I don't grocery shop all that often - typically we do a big Costco run once or twice a month, and supplement with produce from our corner grocery store as we need it. I always checked the cookie aisles, but neither of my regular places carried the Candy Cane Oreos this year. I never felt like making a special trip to Trader Joe's, so I went most of the month without them.

And I guess that's why my craving intensified. And intensified. And intensified. Until one Friday night, about a week or ten days before Christmas, I snapped. It was about 8:15 and I couldn't stand it anymore, so I bundled up, hopped in the car and drove the ten blocks or so to Trader Joe's.

AND THERE WERE NO CANDY CANE JOE-JOE'S TO BE FOUND.

Over the next week, PhillyGuy, being the amazing husband he is, made a bunch of calls to the local Trader Joes...Ardmore, South Jersey, and our Philly store - only to be told that TJ's was SOLD OUT NATIONWIDE. Argh.

And that's why I decided I was just going to have to take matters into my own hands and make my own Candy Cane Joe-Joes.

You have to love any recipe that starts like this, right?



The dough looked amazing.



I got flour and powdered sugar all over my new lululemon sweats.



I LOVE THESE, by the way. LOVE. They're the Cuddle Up pants...this year's version of the Cozy Up II pants, which are my favorite sweats ever. Apparently no one else likes them. Sad face.



I also love making buttercream. I had no idea how easy it was to make until a few months ago...let's talk life-changing.



I rolled the dough into little balls and flattened with my hands. I did overbake the cookies by a couple minutes, but they looked fine when they came out, so I just ran with it.



Um, and do you want to talk about things that look "just fine?" HOLY COW.



I filled the cookies while watching Rocky V on TV. Um, yes, that movie is exactly as bad as you remember it being.



I could.not.WAIT to dig into these bad boys. I was pretty much shaking with anticipation. Poured myself a little glass of milk, called PhillyGuy into the kitchen, and handed him the inaugural cookie.

I knew something was wrong when PhillyGuy took a bite of his Joe-Joe...he looked at me and said "so, do you want your own cookie or did you just want to finish this one?"

Uh oh.

Guys, it was like eating cardboard. I don't know if I overbaked them, or if I screwed something up, or if the recipe just wasn't great, but these were NASTY.

The peppermint buttercream was good, though. So I did what anyone would do.





Scraped out the filling and threw out every single one of the cookies.

I think the worst part was that I was planning to wrap these up and give them out to my coworkers for Christmas. Um...not so much. Thank goodness I had a huge stash of RhodeyGirl's chocolate covered pretzel rods.



Can't win em all. And the true Christmas miracle?



ALLISON (from the Sunday Flog) FOUND CANDY CANE JOE-JOE'S AT HER TJ's AND SENT ME A BOX. So I got my fix after all.

2 comments:

  1. Baking fails are some of the best moments of baking. You have "d'oh" moments when something goes wrong, but I can guarantee you'll never make the same mistake again!

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  2. I'd go with the fact that the recipe just wasn't good. Completely homemade brownies and cookies are seriously touch and go.

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