The Food Porn Cookie Conspiracy

Before anyone gets offended or shocked by the title of this post, let me clarify what food porn is. Food porn is the colloquial name for all those pretty, glossy, want-to-tear-out-and-eat-the-page pictures of food that are becoming more and more common in cookbooks but which have been a staple in food magazines (R.I.P. Gourmet) for quite some time. Food porn is the technique largely used to get people to make the recipes featured in these resources. If it looks good, readers will want to make it. Makes sense, right?

But I think I've discovered a conspiracy within cookie food porn. No matter what type of cookie, not matter from what magazine I got the recipe, my cookies always turn out much darker and crispier than those featured in the food porn photos. It might be my oven, you say? Maybe, but I've noticed this over-baked-ness for quite some time now, during which period I've worked regularly with five very different ovens, always with the same results. Coincidence? I think not!

Here's my theory: fully cooked cookies, at least of the type that the magazines hype today, are simply not as pretty as undercooked cookies, which they photograph. But off course said magazines cannot publish under-cooked cookie instructions because of possible negative health side effects. So, instead, they publish over-cooked instructions next to under-cooked photos, leaving the reader to wonder at the perpetual crispness of their supposed-to-be-soft-and-chewy cookies. The nerve.

I see two options: 1) don't try cookie recipes found in magazines, or 2) when I do try magazine cookie recipes, decrease the cookie time or oven temperature to some degree.

I've never had this problem with Betty Crocker cookies, by the way.