Step Six: The Final Recipe

My last attempt at making a yummy recipe comes in the form of cinnamon nut cookies. The concept came from a healthier version of the cookies I made back in October for my one year vegan anniversary. Reflecting back, I mentioned that they seemed too oily, so my first modification was to replace half of the oil with apple sauce. I decided not to replace all of it with apple sauce because of what Therese said about altering the chemistry of the recipe. I feel like I don’t know enough about the mechanics of food preparation to be sure that replacing apple sauce for oil will not cause a flaw in the overall result. Replacing only half seemed like a safer bet.

I decided not to make chocolate chip cookies as an afterthought. My recipe and the original recipe seemed way too similar to call it my own if I kept everything the same except for adding a little bit of apple sauce. Part of my reasoning for using nuts revolved around newfound knowledge that Therese shared about toasting nuts. It turns out, nuts will keep better raw but taste better toasted, so it’s better to buy them raw then toast them yourself for recipes. Also, apple sauce seems like a healthier alternative to oil, and nuts seem like a healthier alternative to chocolate.

To differentiate my two batches, I made one with almonds and one with pecans. I honestly expected them to taste basically the same with one tasting like almonds and the other tasting like pecans, but they are significantly different. One of them seems cakey and the other is thinner and chewier. I wish I understood what caused the difference. It will be interesting to see if my classmates notice a bigger difference than the type of nut.

Note: The photos are left over from my visit to Alon's yesterday.

Step Five: Alon’s

Today I met with my Senior Project Facilitator at her work. Therese says that she’s been working with Alon, the owner of the bakery, since before it opened. I was amazed by the scale of everything. When she made a batch of oatmeal raisin cookies, for example, the dough alone weighed more than I do! The picture at the top of this post shows just a portion of all of the dough.

Unfortunately, Alon’s isn’t a vegan bakery, so Therese’s help was more general. It was still immensely helpful, though. I helped crack eggs and separate some butter (neither of which are vegan), but the kitchen was so efficient that I really felt like I was mostly just getting in the way. When I told Therese about the pound cake fiasco, she pointed out some really fundamental flaws that I hadn’t thought about. For one thing, when I tried to change a non-vegan recipe into a vegan recipe by just substituting certain ingredients, I was changing the baseline chemistry of the recipe. She thought I would be much more successful if I made a recipe that was already vegan my own. I guess on some level I realized there must be something that was profoundly different between non-vegan and vegan after the pound cake, but she was able to articulate and explain it much better than I. I feel like this experience put the final nails into the coffin of my original product. I think I will go ahead and try one more recipe, though. This time I’ll start with a vegan recipe.

Meanwhile, I’ve started working on a business plan to take the place of my original cook book plan. It’s interesting learning about how to present ideas to investors, and best of all, I think this product could give me experience that can be more practically applied to any form of business. Therese offered a wealth of advice about good business practices as well. She emphasized repeatedly the importance of using high quality ingredients and remaining passionate about what you are doing. She also told me that she does not recommend culinary schools for most people until they have some hands-on experience, too. She started in the business by acting as an apprentice to an established baker and feels that the method taught her everything she needed to know about baking in a more efficient format. In her opinion, the big negative of culinary or pastry schools is the cost paired with the way everything is done in groups. She says that if there is one strong member in a group they may just delegate jobs, so the weaker members never learn to do the whole process alone.