Experimenting

I recently found these little snacks in our local grocery store.  They are really quite tasty and addictive.  I like these ones, too.  Although both kinds are good, they are also more expensive than I really want to spend on snacks, however good.  So I decided that it couldn’t be THAT hard to make them, or something very like them.  Could it?  I mean, there’s not that much in them, and I’m a fairly experienced baker.

Hannah doesn’t like the chocolate ones. She says that they taste like Play-Dough.  Naomi doesn’t like the non-chocolate ones.  Simeon hasn’t had the chocolate ones, but does like the salt ones.  Of course, I didn’t really take any of that into account when I started, because I like the chocolate ones best, so I thought I’d start with those.

I have spent several weeks – well, I don’t know how long, really – thinking about them, pondering ingredients, texture, baking temperature and time, how to hold them together, what to put in, what to leave out, size of batch.  This has been casually rotating in my mind for a while, and today I decided to give a try to a couple of batches, to see if I could find a good substitute. 

The first batch was out of the oven and on the lunch plates.  Naomi ate two and a half of the three I gave her.  She left the last half, which isn’t a good sign.  I thought they were a bit too…something, and also almost burnt.  Note to self:  lower cooking temperature.  Hannah, though, wins the prize for her input:

“They’re pretty good, Mom.  They don’t taste like Play-Dough!”

Of course, I knew that meant she preferred them to the originals, but let’s not quote that one out of context, all right?