butternut squash cookies

butternut squash cookies

Used an online recipe for peanut butter cookies substituting roasted butternut squash for the peanut butter, uncertain how that would work considering peanut butter has oil lacking in butternut squash, and conversely, and butternut squash has water lacking in peanut butter. That ought to throw off the chemistry significantly.

My mixture seemed way too fluffy, but it tasted great. I filled the coffee grinder with oat meal and processed to dust. Added the oatmeal dust to the mixture. Still too fluffy. Filled the coffee grinder again with oatmeal and processed to dust. Added. Still fluffy. That amounted to a little over a cup of oatmeal powder on top of the dry ingredients the recipe called for, so I'm wandering way off the reservation. Still, the mixture tasted wonderful.

Chilled the mixture.

I imagined the cookies would flatten as they baked liked those other cookies did, so for the first batch I dropped a teaspoon full without smashing them. They hardly flattened at all. The second batch I flattened with a fork in crosshatch pattern as done with peanut butter cookies. The fork kept sticking no matter how much I dipped it in flour or sugar or both. So the third batch I rolled into balls and dropped in the sugar, coated entirely with raw sugar then flattened with my fingers. That worked best with this heavily oatmealenated but still fluffy cookie mixture.

I'm beginning to believe there's something to this whole measuring thing. Seems to me a small amount of change can result in a giant difference in outcome. Take eggs for example. The original recipe calls for one egg but makes no mention of size. I use jumbo eggs because I think they're cool. But doubling the recipe doubles the jumbo eggs. That's a lot of eggs. Better to know the weight of egg the recipe is looking for then go by that. The whole thing would be so much more certain. Maybe that'll be my next thing: measuring stuff, keeping records, sticking with the program. I don't know. It sounds so not like me.

Whatev. The cookies are delicious.

2.5 Cups flour (I used low-protein cake flour because I was out of A/P flour
1 tsp. salt (I used 1/5 teaspoons kosher salt flakes)
2 tsp. baking powder
1 Cup shortening (I used Crisco)
1 Cup roasted butternut squash (mine was frozen then thawed)
1 Cup sugar (I used raw sugar)
1 Cup brown sugar (See? this is a lot of sugar. I backed off a little from both kinds
1 tsp vanilla (Pffffft. This is ridiculous, I never use less than one tablespoon. It's against my religion. It's right there in the Bible where God tells Lot to tell Edith to spareth not the vanilla. *looks up * Wut? )

Bake @ 375℉ for 10 minutes (mine were on second to top rack and baked 8 minutes)

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