pistachio & white chocolate chunk cookies

I, the Ginger, am going to have to take up running. 

These cookies are amazing, but I earned a big ol' F on product for this one.  Really disappointed.  I'm not sure what went wrong, or even if only one thing went wrong - I actually suspect there are multiple fails going on.  Damn, damn, damn.

There was a delay between preparing the ... is it dough or batter? ... and it going in the oven.  The not-ginger gets the blame for it sitting aside for about 15 minutes.  I did them in 3 batches too because I really wanted to honor the 10cm gap between cookie-balls so I played it really safe with just 6 to a tray for the first lot until I could see what they did.  The result was uniform though over all batches.

The recipe stipulated a small egg - I used the smallest egg I had, but I think it was too big.  I have a memory pinging in the dark depths of my brain memory that egg acts as a raising agent too, which brings me to my next problem - I think they rose too fast, and possibly too much.  See how they're wrinkly out to the edges?  I'm pretty sure that was caused by the sinking. They came up, and then sunk, and I swear that the middle is actually uncooked.  Whether they're supposed to come up, I don't know, but looking at me vs Dean in pic 3, his cookies have cooked perfectly evenly, so I'd hazard to say not. 

And my pistachios all rolled off when I scattered them over the top of the dough balls, so I tried to really lightly press them in.  I shouldn't have done that.  It said not to flatten them, and I expect that that means not even a little bit. 

So, product fail, but I did learn and as much as I want to nail awesomeness out of the starting gate, I'm doing this because I want to learn.  And today's lesson is .... and I'd just like my honesty to be noted for the record here because I really don't actually want to say this ... I can't believe it never occurred to me before ... if you weigh your spoonsful (spoonfuls? spoonsful?) of dough, you get a uniform sized cookie (head......desk).  And I think paying more attention to ingredients (the not-small egg) will serve me well.

Onwards and upwards?  Absolutely.  Awesomeness awaits.  Over the weekend I'm going to break out the mortar and pestle again and make up some chinese five spice for macaroons next week, hunt down a mini madeleine tin and find some jars for bread starter.