Baking is for wimps

No, you bakers are definitely not the wimps. I am the wimp - having no confidence that anything I do in the kitchen will turn out as expected.

But...

Today I am baking some cookies. You must be aware by now that cooking and baking are not my favourite pastimes but they are definitely useful ways to fill lockdown time. Until recently I have never made cookies. And I tend to avoid anything floury on the basis that I put on weight rather easily (I know, it's also because I have an aversion to exercise).

I have made two batches of cookies recently. The first, plain ones, were not exactly a failure but on the success scale would rate about 3.5. Too wet hence rather flaky, too chunky so filling, possibly undercooked. For the second I decided that recipes were more in the nature of general guidelines rather than prescriptions, so I slightly increased the flour content, flattened them and cooked them at a higher temperature and for longer than the recipe stated. And added chocolate chips. Result: 10.0 on the Nige scale. Very tasty, probably fattening but if I only eat a few every day maybe that won't matter (just kidding, one a day with morning coffee).

Today I have run out of chocolate chips so am going to try raisins. Dunno how that will work out.

I did think of posting this as a video but that seemed rather overrating my kitchen skills and behaviour. And my grandson Oliver has already done a really good cooking video, which I cannot compete with.

In fact I decided to make oatmeal raisin cookies, using a recipe on bbcgoodfood.com (I'm not sure this is a good use of licence payers' money, or what a public service broadcaster should be doing, but I'll skip over that). With some adjustments/substitutions.

Once finished, I hope to post a picture of the finished articles.

[An hour passes]

And here they are:

You can see two things from that. One is that I probably should have made more smaller cookies than fewer larger ones (minor point, I can just halve them when eating). The other, more important, is that I probably cooked them a little too long or possibly at a lower temperature (that was one the adjustments I made - Nigel, don't think you know better than these people). They are definitely a little crispy.

[Ed: you also need to sort out the lighting on these pics]

Now for the taste test. I am pleasantly surprised at the texture - soft and chewy on the inside and harder on the outside is probably what I'm aiming for. However, they are definitely a little TOO crispy, so my overall rating for this batch is:

7.0