I tried . . . .

Beauty isn't always just skin deep. Sometimes it's just not there. And, when they say someone had a face that only a mother could love.  

 

Well, some cookies have an appearance that would scare even the meanest of cookie monsters away.  

 I don't know if Bill selected any from this plate to take in his lunch today.  I do know that I encouraged him a couple of times, and he just kinda grunted. 

These are my first and last attempt to come up with a prototype for some real, true-to-life lemon-filled Oreo-ho-hos. 

I call them Oreo-ho-hos because I don't want to get into any copyright or patent infringements.  

I also dubbed them Oreo-ho-hos after they came out of the oven and I used three tools to try to get them to separate from the bottom of the baking dish.

They turned out to be pretty much a joke. 

Here's the ho-ho story.

It was raining and snowing yesterday.  That's not really news---just a scene setter.

I believe some of us here are finally submitting to the idea that waiting for it to stop raining is not gonna get a lot of stuff done.

I'd already done my stint outside in my snowpants during the morning hours, raking out a few other flower spots and picking up dog droppings.

That's about all I wanted to do in the rain, so I spent several hours indoors. 

Part of that time was spent doing some family research, and the rest involved fulfilling a notion that has been swirling around in my head ever since that terrorist said those Oreos I brought to the book club meeting were not lemon-filled . . . just yellow-filled. 

That notion actually evolved from all these people who read my blog and believed that I had actually found lemon-filled Oreos at the grocery store and went looking themselves to come up empty-handed.

I figured if the combination sounded so good to them, maybe I could develop such a cookie and get a corner on the market.

Well, after yesterday, I'm not quite ready to call my banker to figure out what to do with the investments.

As I explained to my daughter-in-law yesterday---if I took some Betty Crocker brownie mix and made thin slabs of chocolate stuff instead of full-fledged puffed up brownies, I could have the makings for those stuffed cookies.

 I could remove the slabs from the pans, cut 'em in squares and then put some of that lemon-flavored frosting in between for sandwiches.

So, the day before I had already picked up the brownie mix and spent a fortune for a tiny bottle of lemon extract. 

 When the yucky weather drove me inside, I decided it was time to go into my creative cooking project. 

So, I got out the bowls, the mix and went to work.  Yes, I did put oil in the bottom of the baking pans. 

Well, the buzzer rang in the oven, and I checked the slabs.  Still soft.

So, I left them for ten more minutes.

After taking them out of the oven, I left them to cool and whipped up the high-priced frosting.

When it was time to make the first ever Lovestead original Oreo-ho-ho, I realized very quickly it would be a time-consuming process.

 First, I tried removing a few squares with a knife.  Then, I moved on to the fancy metal pancake turner Bill bought at Merwin's.

The squares held tight.

Then, I pulled out the cake spatula, purchased at Panhandle Animal Shelter's thrift store last week.  It's pointed and sharp.

Still no luck.

So, I spent considerable time, slowly working the orginal spatula beneath the slab squares.  Some squares exploded into several tiny pieces in the process.

I was able to remove a few but not without considerable bodily injury---not to myself but the cookies, as you can see in the photo.

Still not daunted, I figured they might not look pretty but they'd surely taste good.

 I slopped on some frosting and made a few cookie sandwiches.

Of course, I ate the prototype.  Overall assessment:  chewy, a bit crunchy but tasty. 

 What's on the plate is the grand total made from two boxes of brownie mix.

After chipping away for another ten minutes or so, I took the pyrex dishes full of cemented brownie slabs and filled each with water.  

They sat on the counter for a couple of hours, allowing the cooked dough to separate from the pan and turn into a bread-and-milk consistency.

Water was drained off; brownie dough went into a garbage bag.

I suppose I could have turned over the slabs to the dogs---but I have been formerly warned about feeding brownies to dogs.

Besides, even their sharp teeth could never have scraped the stuff from the pan.

 I told Bill this morning about my lame efforts to come up with the cookie of the century.

"Well, there's a reason Oreo's have a patent and a corner on the market," he commented.

Now that I've shared this story,  I'll go downstairs and see if he ever took any of the pathetic attempts at Lovestead Oreo-ho-hos with his lunch today. 

My overall conclusion:  somebody needs to write to the Oreo company and tell them to come up with a lemon-filled cookie.  

I bet they'd make millions, cuz they don't have to worry about competition from the Lovestead Oreo-ho-hos.