Indented Cookies

American author, Sue Orzman, once said, "People have got to learn: if they don't have cookies in the cookie jar, they can't eat cookies." Heeding this advice, once our cookie jar was empty, I did what any person would do: I hit the mixer and made cookies!

For this blog post, I decided that the cookie technique I would try to use is indenting cookies. As Cookie Craft describes it, "Indenting your cookie before baking--that is, pressing designs into the raw dough--creates visual interest or highlights cookie features. We've used our spatulas, toothpicks, drinking straws, and a variety of other household items to create particular imprinted shapes" (Fryer and Peterson 88). Basically, the idea of indenting cookies is to use anything that would make an interesting imprint on the cookie and using that to press into the cookie before baking (Fryer and Peterson 88). When you bake the cookie, the imprint stays visible.

The indenting tools I used

The indenting worked really well with some of the tools I used, and not so well with others. For example, the toothpick that I used to make flowers turned out really well, but the spoon with the slots in it only flattened out the cookie so that the shape it got deformed. Also, the slots in the spoon didn't create much of an indent. Another thing I noticed, which is pretty obvious, is that the harder I pressed, the more prominent of an indent it created.

With a toothpick

With a slotted spoon

After baking the cookies, I did a simple piping with my frosting. I made sure to keep the tip of the frosting bag slightly above the cookie, since that helps to get a smooth and unbroken pipe (Fryer and Peterson 104). One thing that I noticed myself doing was putting frosting where I made the indentations, since that was the part of the cookie that caught my and and was most prominent. Doing this on some of the cookies, I think, took away from some of the more detailed indentation, which disappointed me.

I used a sword-toothpick to indent this, but the
frosting took away from the intended outcome

I used a potato masher to indent this cookie, and
I think that the frosting actually enhanced it

From this experience, I think that I learned that, sometimes, frosting doesn't add to the cookie. In the future, when indenting cookies, I will focus on piping frosting on the outside of the cookie, if at all.
All in all, however, I was pretty proud of the cookies that I made. And, as always, they tasted delicious!

Before frosting

After frosting

What is something that you made, that turned out well, but then you accidentally screwed it up by trying to make it better?

Fryer, Janice, and Valerie Peterson. Cookie Craft. Pownal, VT: Storey, 2008. Print.