I needed to take an “interesting” cookie to a dinner. Something that would go with the orange ice the hostess was serving for desert.

Hmmmmmm.

In 2009 I worked in a library and a new cookbook arrived called “Cookies to Die For.” I loved looking at the beautiful images of perfect cookies, so I bought a copy for myself.

I’ve never actually baked anything from the book. But I like to look at the pictures and dream, so it’s never been donated to our local library book sale. This week I decided to find something interesting, yet doable, in the book to take with me to dinner. And I found it.

Gingerbread streusel thins.

This perfect cookie was pictured near the front of the book, a small dollop of fresh whipped cream adorning the thin, crispy square of goodness. A tasty work of art.

I was sure I could replicate it.

But it called for molasses and I’d been out for awhile. So had my local Kroger, the last few times I’d ordered my groceries for curbside pickup. Maybe I should go in and see for myself, you know how these young shoppers are, they might not even know what molasses is.

Nope. No molasses on the shelf at Kroger.

So I drove to another store and darned if they didn’t have a whole lot of it. Confusing, but not so much that I wanted to stand there and think about it. Time was short. But, wait. When was the last time I baked anything with powdered ginger. Or allspice? Better pick some up while I was at the store.

When I got home I checked the expiration date on the small tin of ginger. Hmmmm… November of 2017. Not too bad. After all, what’s 4 years among friends’ baked goods? And the allspice? December, so I’m good, right? What? What year you wonder? Well….December of 2001.

I tossed them both.

And how did the cookies turn out? Well, note there are no beautiful images of my cookie. No artfully lit square of spicy goodness. No dollops to be found.

No…my cookies turned out spongy. You might say soggy. You could probably scrape them out of the pan and into a bowl over which you could spoon the more elegant orange ice.

I took a few of them to dinner anyway, because I believe homemade cookies should always reside in the no judgement zone. Plus they tasted amazing, likely because of those fresh spices.

But…I felt I needed to hide the evidence of my soggy failure.

So I ate the rest.

Yum.