I've never understood the attraction to pre-packaged box mixes, particularly when the end result is an easy-to-make cookie or brownie. Isn't making from scratch nearly as simple? Besides, while there are no guarantees in life, it's fairly safe to say that homemade will trump just about anything that originates from a cardboard box.
Or so I thought. A few weeks ago a catalogue from the King Arthur Flour folks fell out of my mailbox. Don't ask why I found myself curious about a new cookie mix the company was featuring, but I did. Maybe it's because I once tried to bake a similar Oreo-like chocolate sandwich cookie recipe (from Los Angeles uber-baker and cookbook author Nancy Silverton), and it didn't work out the way I'd hoped; the recipe was fussy and time-consuming, and the finished product, at least in my rank amateur's hands, wasn't stellar.
But a box mix? Maybe. I logged on, spent about five minutes on the company's website and just two days later it was sitting in my kitchen. That was easy. Turns out, so was making them: I hauled out my trusty mixer and added butter and an egg. Rolling and cutting the dough was a breeze, and the cookies came out of the oven bearing a gently crisp exterior and a nicely chewy interior, with a rich, slightly bittersweet chocolate bite. The icing came together in a snap, and while my finished Rick-eos were far clunkier looking than the ones pictured on the King Arthur box, they tasted as if I'd made them myself, which is how I passed them off (just to be on the safe side, I buried the box at the bottom of the recycling bin). For cheaters, these "homemade" cookies are pretty swell. Downsides? The mix was $9.95, and shipping and handling cost nearly as much, $6.50. That's not cheap for what turned out to be roughly 20 two-inch cookies. We're talking 85 cents per cookie, and that doesn't include the egg and two sticks of butter.
Would I try them again? Sure. This is one box mix that impressed me. I don't know about you, but I look at these pictures and instinctively want to reach for a glass of skim. That's one measure of a good cookie.
Unfortunately, not all high-end mixes are created equally. Witness Bouchon Bakery's chocolate-chunk cookie mix. I picked one up at Williams-Sonoma while I was on a recent vacation, thinking it would be an easy sweet to bake in our rental home's kitchen. Certainly less time-consuming than a sidetrip to the supermarket for the flour, granulated sugar, brown sugar, baking soda, vanilla extract and chocolate chips that I wasn't sure was waiting back in that unfamiliar pantry.
The directions were a breeze: Cream the butter, add the dry ingredients and the egg, stir in the chocolate (first-rate Callebaut), bake. No problem. The dough, with its deep brown sugar flavor, was kind of addictive (admit it: you're a dough-eater too). They baked up into thick, golden brown cookies with tons of chocolate -- I like my chocolate chip cookies to be at least half chocolate, if not more, and these totally filled that bill. Funny thing is, as good as they looked and smelled -- and as tasty as that dough was -- when they came out of the oven they were, well, a little bland. Maybe I'd add a shot of vanilla extract next time?
Not that there probably will be a next time. Yes, it was a relatively convenient process. Certainly not as quick as a Pillsbury, Nestle or Mrs. Field's refrigerated or frozen cut-and-bake dough, but let's not pretend that those products could ever pass as homemade. This one definitely could.
The downside is the price. They're a stupidly expensive $18. Yes, eighteen hard-earned dollars, for what is essentially flour, sugar, chocolate and a really attractive, well-designed package. A single box yielded about a dozen 3-inch cookies. That's roughly $1.50 a pop, not including the cost of butter and an egg, making it one convenience food that clearly isn't making a stab at appearing reasonably priced. Heck, don't throw that box away. At those prices, you'll want to capitalize on the cachet of using a Bouchon Bakery/Williams-Sonoma product.
