The Most Difficult Cookies in the World

Even though this is on a Saturday this is not a Sacrament, Sister and Brothers, just a product review. I got this Cookie Shot kit through a hotel loyalty program by spending points that were about to expire; I figured that I could test it out and see how it worked plus we like cookies. Tonight is a birthday party for a friend of ours who always has a lot of alcoholic at her events so I thought these might be a nice gift. Little did I realize how much time it would take to make 20 cookie shots, how little help the parent company would be when I asked them questions, or how the cookie shots would turn out. Do I recommend this kit? Read the rest of this article to find out.

The kit comes with only one recipe. I could not find additional recipes on the SmartPlanet website; there is no Cookie Nation company that I could find. I even emailed SmartPlanet and they said: The recipes provided in the manual are the only ones we provide. You can always add your own recipe to use and have other cookie flavors. However as the booklet in the kit makes clear, it is very important to use their recipes because the mold will only work with a particular cookie. Luckily this recipe is part shortbread and part mini chocolate chip so I just left out the chocolate chips for some of them.

Look at the box, note the various cookie flavors that are listed. I think this is misleading since they do not provide recipes and the booklet says the mold will not work with regular or store bought cookie dough.

Making the dough doesn't take any more time than other cookie doughs but time is very consumed for the other stages of production. It takes a bit of time to press the dough into the mold and then you have to chill it for 20 minutes while the oven heats up. Do not preheat your oven before then or you are simply wasting energy; turn off the oven between batches for the same reason. I made a batch without the mini chips and then a second with them. The dough goes a lot further with the chips versus without so I recommend it but my friend likes shortbread cookies so I wanted to make sure to have a few for her to try out. In this photo are just a few of the ingredients I used; I do not normally use real sugar or shortening but I had some on hand or got them just for this recipe.

In my oven the recommended 30 minutes worked perfectly.

Once you remove the cookies though set the mold on a wire rack to cool, trust me on this one and use a wire rack so the air can circulate. Even using that, it took two hours for the cookies to cool down enough for me to remove them from the mold. The booklet is very helpful on this point and the cookies came out in a single piece. Any unevenness is on me and not the fault of the mold though I would have been nice to have a fill-to line I could have seen in the mold.

I used a chocolatey candy coating, the removable melting bowl, and the stand to melt the coating in the microwave. It worked very well but I can't help feeling that this is really unnecessary. I've melted candy coating and chocolate in the microwave with other bowls. Since this kit does not include a tiny spatula or brush you still have to use some utensil to help spread the coating around the inside.

Once cooled the coating does indeed protect the cookie shot glass from skim milk.

I recommend drinking whatever you put into the cookie glass and then eating the cookie part even if it didn't crumble, better to be safe than sorry, right? Tastes great and very much like a cross between shortbread texture and chocolate chip flavor.

The kit could and should simply be the booklet and the cookie shot mold; the other items are unnecessary and simply make the kit look good while adding a higher cost.

The biggest difficulty with these cookies is the time it takes to make them. From the point of making the dough through letting the coating dry inside it takes around 3 hours –– 3 hours –– to make just 6 of these. In short this took me 12 hours to make 20.5 of these and that is crazy! Yes, they did taste good and they were fun to use but honestly I can't recommend this kit.

Tilting cookie shots my fault, not the kit.