I Should Know Better

 I really should know better than to trust something I saw on the internet.  

But I couldn't resist trying a new cookie recipe. It sounded good, the pictures looked good, and I thought it would be a perfect addition to the homemade goodies I was gifting a few people for Christmas.

Yeah, I should have tried it first.  Or at least scrutinized the directions ahead of time, instead of skimming them for basic info--ingredients?  Chill time needed?  Baking temperature and time?--and then jumping in.

I'll say they tasted okay.  But visually, they were a mess.  Really, they looked like there'd been a bloody massacre in the oven.

Obviously the red food coloring from the crushed candy canes the recipe called for ran.  In the internet pictures, these were tidy looking normal shaped cookies in which you could clearly see the white chocolate chips and the pieces of candy canes.  In reality, bloodbath cookies.  Hand through the wood chipper cookies.

Needless to say, none of these cookies got gifted.

Maybe I'll make them again, following the recipe as written, for some future 'gross me out' contribution to a Halloween party.

Or, maybe next year I'll tweak the recipe like I should have done this time, and make them like I thought they should be made (chilled longer, then scooped and dipped in candy cane pieces instead of candy canes mixed into wet ingredients with the rest of the dry ingredients, shaped, dipped, then barely chilled, and cooked slightly longer) and see if they come out less runny and raw-ground-meat looking.  

Live and learn.  And don't trust the internet!