Cooking Baking Eating

I’ve had a rough time lately, but it’s not just one thing. The economy sucks, stress sucks, a lot of things suck. I’ve had a lot of “things” recently in my life that have seemed to just throw me out of balance.

Sadly it’s also given me cooking block.

I’m used to writers block or creative block, but cooking block is a new one for me. Either I cook something and it’s just “eh” or I do something and it just doesn’t come out looking right.

For the last few years I’ve almost felt like a cooking super hero. Every time I make something for friends they say they love it, I get rave reviews from work for my baked goods. It makes me feel rather awesome when I can just whip something up and it is just awesomeness.

Now it just feels like those powers have left me lately. I was doing great for the first month or so of the year, baking my first cake from scratch, experimenting with new ways of making breads without yeast, picking something up at the store that I’ve never eaten before and seeing what I can do with it….

I feel like Clark Kent and I just got beat with the kryptonite stick.

Now it’s my second batch of flat cookies and I don’t know what to do with myself. It was a double batch so I could make some ice cream cookies and still have some regular cookies around.

Now all I have is a large batch of flat cookies sitting on my counter.

Mocking me.

Mocking me and my dead cooking abilities.

Bastards…

I don’t know where I went wrong with this recipe. I’ve made it before and it turned out wonderful! It made some awesome ice cream sandwiches, but this time something happened and I’m not sure what.

I’ve tried:

• Changing pans. Going from a half sheet pan to a flat cookie sheet with no sides.
• Lowering the temp on my oven by 25F.
• Cooking for less time.
• Chilling the dough after scooping before baking.
• Chilling the dough before scooping.
• Making sure my pans are room temp before putting the parchment of dough on it.

But they all turned out pretty much the same. I’m really at a loss here.

What in the world happened to me?