And Then There Was a Bake-Off … Against Myself

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I forgot that I gave my baking sheet away in the move because it was a hand-me-down from my parents, probably from their wedding a million almost forty years ago, so it was peeling and burnt black and time for a new one but when I was finally settled in my house and with my sweet protein baking organization system I whipped up a fast batch of decaying-zucchini and protein cookies. and then realized I had no cookie sheet.

There are lots of substitutes for things. Like flax + water for eggs. All sorts of shit for sugar. Even candied ginger or dried cherries for the treats chocolate chips in every bite.

There is no substitute for a baking sheet. You can’t fold foil and put parchment paper on it. You can’t bake cookies right on the rack. So I did what any sensible person would do: ordered a baking sheet on Amazon and made muffins.

And then. I suddenly thought I was the greatest (only?) protein muffin baker there ever was. GOOD GODS THESE MUFFINS ARE DELICIOUS! I exclaimed, and everyone who I fed them to, exclaimed. One particularly supportive person even told me I should give up my future lucrative protein cookie company in favor of muffins.

But then. The cookie sheet arrived. Conveniently, so did the SFH protein. You see, I had been using the plant-based protein Ora, which is pre-release and they sent it to me and I will tell you more about it when I am not discussing my very serious and scientific bake-off—spoiler alert: Ora protein is pretty good in water but effing fantastic in baked goods. So I did the only logical thing and decided to have a bake-off against myself.

I made protein cookies and muffins from the same batter, in two different bowls (also hand-me-downs likely from my parents’ wedding but in much better shape although they vaguely conjure up images of the vomit bowl when we were little, which is actually what they are, so …) with the two types of proteins (recipe: eggs, butter, grated zucchini, protein, chocolate chips … NO additional flours). The results more or less speak for themselves:

The eff whey?!

Now, in the interest of recipe fairness, I didn’t adjust the batters once I saw their textures, so obviously the Ora protein cookies were going to be better, because their batter was more dough-like than runny, the texture which is ideal for muffins. By the same token, the runny SFH batter should have made better muffins—but the Ora muffins also kicked the SFH muffins’ ass top.

Bottom line? Ora protein is the most superior in baking (with zucchini), even if it lends a subtle green sheen to baked goods. Yah yah yah the macros are different (whey > vegan in protein grams) but there’s only so much I can deal with in my bake-offs. I’m not a scientific baker. I throw ingredients in a bowl and real bakers into a tizzy.

Next up in the die-alone-baking-protein-shit bake-off edition? Holy grail protein cookies. Stay tuned.