How flat? How lumpy?

I've taken a few days' vacation from work to do lots of things around the house--get re-organized and re-centered--but I fit in a few more experiments with things like dates and more flavorful flours, like graham or buckwheat. Nothing worth giving to the taste-testers, but I did get some photos for prodding our memories.

The taste-testers' recollections about the shape of the guerrilla cookie seem to differ a bit. It was definitely flat enough to be stacked in tall, thin bags, but how flat?


One person I tried to recruit as a taste-tester told me that he was not sure that he remembered the guerrilla cookie. He said that he thought they were taller and "got narrower around the base." I think he meant something like this shape. I decided he was correct that he does not remember the guerrilla cookie.

But how flat were they? Peter thought that Batch 75 (photo in previous post) was too flat, that the original guerrilla was more 'dodu,' or puffy in the middle. John made Batch 75 and thought they pancaked too much. I, too, think that several batches have been too flat, but trying to get a little more depth in the center has also led me to wondering about the surface texture.

Certainly, the surface had a sheen--everyone agrees on that. But when I try to get the cookie to mound a bit more in the center, I often turn the surface lumpier than I think is right. Setting aside the question of whether they are too flat, take a look at the following photos. I think the surface of the first cookie is lumpier than the original guerrilla was. While the second cookie below is too flat, its surface is closer to the guerrilla cookie of my memory.


















If anyone else wants to express an opinion, please comment!

Batch 75

The recipe for Batch 75 is:

¼ cup sunflower seeds
¼ cup walnuts
2 tbsp sesame seeds
1 cup rolled oats
½ cup raisins
¼ cup steel cut oats
½ cup whole wheat flour
2 tbsp wheat germ
½ cup rice flour
¼ cup turbinado sugar
¼ cup dry milk
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp cinnamon
5 medium eggs
3 tbsp molasses
¼ cup + 1 tbsp honey
½ cup sunflower oil
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and toast sunflower seeds and walnuts for 8-10 minutes, or just until fragrant and starting to turn color. Toast sesame seeds separately until just starting to turn color. Toast rolled oats until fragrant. Place the seeds and nuts in a food processor with the raisins and most of the rolled oats, and process until the raisins are all well-chopped.

Stir the chopped nut-and-seed mixture together with the rest of the rolled oats and the remaining dry ingredients.

In a separate bowl, mix the wet ingredients, stirring until well mixed, without introducing much air.

Stir the wet ingredients and dry ingredients together until completely blended. Drop in heaping tablespoonsful onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until edges are browned.

To enhance the chewiness, this batch is even heavier on the egg and honey than previous batches; I eliminated the milk and reduced the sugar to compensate. For both chewiness and the 'little white dots' that I remember, I finally thought of steel-cut oats. I tried a bit of rice flour; I've been wondering if that might help the sheen a bit.

I won't comment on what I think of this recipe until the taste-testers have weighed in.