cookie verdict

I served my keto cookies to the crew, i.e., to my Korean coworker and to my boss. The boss said they were not bad, but they were a little dry, maybe because of the almond flour. I found the cookies to be soft and almost chewy, but my boss can be a picky fellow. My Korean coworker said they tasted much like the previous batch, which makes me think he was being polite. I thought the cookies had a soft texture and were generally good, but I could really taste (if taste is the word) the erythritol in the Lily's baking chips—that cool feeling on the tongue, similar to when you're chewing on spearmint gum (or—if you've ever been to Mount Vernon and had mint straight from George Washington's garden as part of a tour—when you're chewing on mint itself). I could also sense the lack of sugar in the chocolate; the almondy taste of the rest of the cookie could't hide that fact. So all in all, I liked the first batch much more than I like the current batch. The current batch isn't bad, but it does feel like a bit of a letdown.

The next time I bake these cookies, and assuming my boss is onto something re: dryness, I might try adding another egg and maybe a tiny bit more butter to the recipe next time. You can't add too much fat, though, because your cookie might lose all of its structural integrity and end up as a puddle on your baking sheet (that's more of a danger with butter than with eggs given what happens to eggs when they're exposed to heat: they solidify thanks to protein clumping). I'm also going to flatten the cookies out before baking them because I really don't like what a spoon-push does to the melted chocolate chips on top of the cookies. As I think I mentioned earlier, the cookies don't spread that much during the bake because they're made with almond flour; I suspect that pressing them out before baking will work out just fine. No more of this par-baking nonsense.

I actually like these almond cookies (the first batch, I mean) almost as much as regular Toll House cookies even though they don't have the same texture. And while making them with non-keto chips comes close to defeating the purpose of making such cookies to begin with, they're still lower in carbs than they'd otherwise be. So I'll keep doing what I can, cautiously, to improve each successive batch.