Cookie Project part 2 (yeah!)

Today's recipe was taken from the December 2009 issue of Bon Appetit. The recipe: Lemon Cranberry Florentines. At the risk of sounding like an idiot, I will admit that I didn't have any idea what a Florentine was. Thanks to Wikipedia for enlightening me on this one. "A Florentine biscuit (or, simply, a Florentine) is a confection made from setting nuts and candied cherries into a caramel disc, which is then coated on the bottom with dark chocolate". However, the picture that accompanied the entry did not resemble a cookie, or, for that matter, even a 'biscuit'. At most, it looked like a charred English muffin that got stuck in a commercial restaurant toaster (I know this from experience). My outlook was grim for this project.

However, my hopes for the recipe were somewhat bolstered by the really cute picture that was in the magazine spread (yeah!):

Well, you know what happens when you follow a recipe to a T? How it's usually supposed to work out? (yeah!) Well, it didn't this time. I did write a rather scathing review on Epicurious, but for some reason, it has magically disappeared. Now I'm going to air my grievances.

A) I had the same problem here as I did with the last recipe with the quantity that can be produced by this recipe. It's duly noted that the same person penned both recipes. This, once again, is apparently supposed to make close to 40 cookies. Once again, I got 2 dozen.

B) The baking information is WAYYYYYY off. If you bake these things at 350F for 16 minutes, you know what you're going to have? (yeah!) Not cookies! You're going to have lumps of black crap and a house that smells like carbon.

C) Please note that a combination of A+B left only 12 cookies that may have been viable for eating, but the cookies didn't flatten into discs really. Take a look at the picture above, and then take a look at what these things come out looking like:

I didn't even bother putting the chocolate drizzle on them. I ate one. It was mediocre and I didn't care to eat another one. My roommate decided to try one, and I could tell there was some sort of deep internal struggle taking place for him not to spit it out into the waste can.

This is a big old fail. The combination of cranberry, lemon, and almond was good, just not here....perhaps in an oatmeal cookie? (yeah!)

You might be wondering why this post is flecked with 'yeah!' all over...and I shall tell you. Because of the 1983 epic Christmas-time movie "Trading Places" with Eddie Murphy, Dan Akroyd, and Jamie Lee Curtis. The jail scene? Surely it's coming back to you now. And now, for Christmas-time funs, here's a selected excerpt that I shall leave you with for the evening: