Cookbook Club – The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook

For July’s Cookbook Club, we used The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook by Deb Perelman. I chose the Buttered Popcorn Cookies. Go to my Cookbook Club site to see the incredible spread we had at the event. For now – my dish!

I was pretty excited to make these cookies. I mean come on… it’s buttered popcorn… in cookies! I know the salt-sweet thing is a big trend in the food world right now, but I have to admit I’m a sucker for it. So I was sure I was going to love these cookies.

First, you pop the popcorn. Then you make the cookie dough, which is pretty standard – flour and baking soda in one bowl; butter, sugar, brown sugar, egg, and vanilla in another; add the dry mixture into the wet mixture. Mix the popcorn into the dough, drop spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet, and bake. Easy!

I couldn’t wait for these to come out of the oven. The second they were cool enough for me to bite into one without searing the roof of my mouth behind my two front teeth, I gobbled one. And was totally disappointed. Mixing the popcorn into the dough made it wet, which followed by baking gave it a stale texture. And the cookie dough itself just had a very basic flavor. Meh.

I thought perhaps my anticipation had gotten the better of me, and these cookies weren’t meant to be eaten warm. So I waited for them to completely cool and tried another. Same result. Such a letdown! The good news is that everything else people made from The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook was extraordinarily good, and by all accounts very straightforward to cook. So other than my loser dish, it was a party with fantastic food!