The King’s Peach!

The winner of our cookie flavor poll was: PEACH! The guidelines for this duel are as follows:

• Ease of prep/baking-10
• Texture-20
• Flavor/taste -20
• Ingredient ratios- 10
• Ease of eating- 10
• Peach flavor-20
• How well does the actual number of cookies make correspond to how many the recipe says -10

Krista here and let me start off by saying that peaches are not on my list of favorite things to eat (the actual list is fairly short- chocolate, cheese and moscato). With that said, I loved these cookies! I went with a recipe from http://www.food.com, Theresa/Thunderbird’s take on Peach Cookies.

I will say I tweaked the recipe slightly. It was optional to add raisins but that sounded disgusting, so I added white chocolate chips- half a cup. I also substituted pumpkin pie spice for the cloves. Some of the reviews said the cookies were more “cake like” than chewy- completely true. These cookies are very fluffy and not overwhelming in peach flavor. My husband said they taste like peach pie. So- let’s get to the ratings!

• Ease of prep/baking- 10/10 pts- super simple to prepare and easy to cook- I did cook them for 18:30 instead of 20 minutes. I also drained my peaches after cutting them- there was a lot of juice created while dicing.
• Texture- 18/20 pts These cookies are cake-like and hold true to that. However, when spooning them to make the cookies they are difficult to get a “pretty” and clean shape.
• Flavor/taste: 20/20 pts Delicious flavor with the peach and subtle spices. These would be good as double doozies (two cookies with icing in the middle) for sure.
• Ingredient ratios- if extras are added (raisins, nuts, chocolate chips etc) are there enough, too many? do they get evenly distributed?- 8/10 pts Since peaches are not very sturdy they had to be folded into the recipe and some of the cookies ended up with less peach than others. If you are wanting the white choc chips to be a strong factor in the cookie you need to add more- there are maybe 3 per cookie in my batch having used a 1/2 cup.
• Ease of eating- 10/10 pts the cookie holds together well since it is more of a cake-like cookie there is no breaking or a lot of crumbs.
• Peach flavor-16/20 pts The cookies are what I would say mostly peach, however I’m not sure that someone would be able to discernibly tell these cookies were peach and not apricot- or another fruit like that.
• How well does the actual number of cookies make correspond to how many the recipe says –4/10 This recipe said it made 4 dozen cookies- it made 20. I either really stink at tea-spooning out the batter, or they just over exaggerate about the amount.

*drum roll* These cookies scored a total of 86 points!

Hello all, Andrea here. I was pumped for this duel because peaches are one of my absolute favorite fruits! One of my favorite places to get recipes is AllRecipes. I love the ingredient search feature and the recipe box. One problem, I find, however is often times the rating will be skewed by users who vote a recipe highly, but end up making lots of changes. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if the base recipe is good, or only edible after several changes. I decided to go with this recipe for this duel. Some users stated different changes they made to improve the recipe, but I stuck with the original and it was delicious.

• Ease of prep/baking-10/10 – Just a simple, basic cookie recipe. Perfect for quick afternoon baking.
• Texture- 17/20 – Chewy on the inside, but a little crispier on the outside than I prefer, especially for a sugar cookie.
• Flavor/taste – 18/20 – The cookie itself was delicious, but not strong on the peach flavor.
• Ingredient ratios- 9/10 – The walnuts got more evenly distributed than the peach chunks.
• Ease of eating- 10/10 – Didn’t fall apart, not crumbly.
• Peach flavor- 18/20 – The peach chunks were visible and flavorful, but not very “peachy”. Similar problem that Krista had above.
• How well does the actual number of cookies make correspond to how many the recipe says -10/10 – Says 4 dozen and made exactly 4 dozen.

Overall these cookies got 92/100 points. They were very good and I would make them again and play around with the flavorings. This is a great recipe for beginners or those short on time!