A Challenge

As you probably know, I have been baking quite a bit in the past few months. In general, I find recipes online (allrecipes.com or food blogs), which is why I am a bit puzzled when everyone profusely compliments my baked goods. They are really, really easy to make!! I have no training whatsoever; I do not come up with unique ideas; and I'm not all fancy about decorating either. I did, however, finally buy an icing press, so now I can semi-beautifully ice cupcakes! (Someday, I really will upload my pictures so I can post lots of cupcake pictures. I made two awesome batches last week.)

Next Monday at my office there will be a cookie competition. Now, I have somewhat of a reputation to protect, as everyone seems to regard me as the resident baker, and a coworker even told me last week that I had "missed my calling" and clearly my role in life is supposed to be a cupcake baker. (It was the sweetest compliment!) There will be an official certificate for the winning baker. The judge will be the birthday boy in honor of whom we are holding this event.

I WANT TO WIN.

But more importantly, I want to do something unprecedented, something wild and crazy: I want to create my very own cookie recipe to enter in the cookie competition. That way, I will feel 100% proud, not like anyone could have found the recipe online and made it just as well as I did. It will be a totally unique cookie, being consumed for the first time ever. I will finally feel like I deserve at least some of the praise heaped upon me.

And that is why, dear friends, I call upon you at this time for advice. I have decided to make Irish car bomb cookies, echoing the cupcakes of the same flavor that were such a hit this past weekend. They will be sandwich cookies. One side will be a whiskey cookie and one will be a Guinness cookie; they will be held together with Bailey's filling. I'd like the cookie batters to be appropriate for use in my cookie press. That way they will make better sandwiches and also look impressive. (Turns out it's very easy to impress people with baked goods.)

Here's where you come in. It turns out that whiskey cookies are an Irish tradition so I will modify that recipe to make it my own (starting by removing the nuts of course!). But I am not sure where to begin with the Guinness cookie. I would like to start by adapting the Guinness cupcake recipe (follow the link earlier in this post) into a cookie recipe. Then I want to make some changes like adding brown sugar. But I don't really understand what the difference is between cupcake/cake recipes and cookie recipes. What is essentially different in the batter that makes them turn out so differently? I've been comparing cookie and cake recipes, and they seem to have similar ratios of flour to butter to eggs to sugar. Can you really make the same batter and depending on how you cook it, end up with cupcakes or cookies?? I don't want my cookies to end up too fluffy and cakelike. I also have one other question- what kind of filling do you think would taste good? I was going to make some kind of icing, but I am not sure if that would be too sweet, or if a different texture would be more enjoyable for a cookie sandwich. I found one homemade Oreo recipe online but the filling calls for gelatin which I will not use (not vegetarian).

If anyone has advice, I would greatly appreciate it since I would like to minimize the time and amount of ingredients necessary for the testing phase of my cookie endeavor. Thanks for reading!

P.S. If you live with me or see me on Tuesday nights you will get to taste these cookies, so it is in your best interest for them to fulfill their maximum yum potential. ;)