C is for Cheetos Carnage

Sometimes, scrolling through Pinterest for recipes can bring up absolute gems. 

Other times, you find Cheetos Cookies.

And you make them. Because how can you not?

The story goes that some restaurant in the LA area started making Cheetos cookies as a novelty (oh, those quirky Californians), so after trying it, the OP decided to recreate them. More power to her for trying them in the first place and actually liking them enough to do this. Then I remembered  the summer we had 17 year locusts and an ice cream shop made locust ice cream and it reinforced that it is okay to ask yourself "Why?" and move on.

I didn't move on.

Ingredients assembled,

I bought a huge bag of Cheetos. Party sized, in fact. This turned out not to be necessary, but I will get to that. Bottom line, however, is that I never read a recipe all the way through before plunging in, so party sized it is. The first task was to measure out four cups and turn them into Cheeto powder in a food processor. First off, it is NOT possible to get an accurate volume measurement of Cheetos, because they do not lend themselves to fitting neatly into a measuring cup. I had to ballpark it. Half of the pulverized Cheetos is added to the dry ingredients. The butter, shortening, and eggs are creamed, orange food coloring is suggested to enhance the color (I did it, but I don't know that it was necessary, but when you get right down to it, NONE of this recipe was necessary). 

Pulverized Cheetos. Same color
inside and out!

The dough.

After everything was stirred together, I tasted the dough. My theory is that a cookie is only as good as the dough, and I was pleasantly surprised that THIS dough tasted fine. Not Cheeto-ish at all. The dough is rolled into balls and these balls are then rolled in the remaining crushed Cheetos and refrigerated for an hour before baking.

Pre-dip dough ball

Post-dipped dough ball

Kind of a messy process

While I was waiting on the dough to chill, I munched on Cheetos. When I was in elementary and junior high school, I enjoyed going to my friend Liz's house to spend the night, and when I did, her mom always went to Milgrim's Supermarket and bought an ENORMOUS bag of store brand Cheetos just for me. They were much like cheese flavored styrofoam and I thought they were delicious (my mom didn't shop at Milgrim's - she was an A&P person and besides, she was busy buying Club crackers). I still had half a bag of Cheetos by this time, so I did a little extra Pinterest searching and found a recipe for Candied Cheetos: boil corn syrup, butter, and brown sugar together. Pour over the Cheetos. Bake for an hour, stirring every 15 minutes. 

Well, they're better than the cookies

Finished products

Bottom line on repurposing Cheetos to make them sweet?

Just don't.

The cookies were nothing but weird. Cheesy Cheetos crumbs on the outside of a cookie is weird and the juxtaposition of the salty cheese with a sweet cookie was gross. Taste Tester Julie only ate one bite, and she eats pretty much anything.

The Candied Cheetos were weird, but not AS weird as the cookies. The cheesy taste was fairly non-existent when smothered with the caramel coating, but again, just don't. Make caramel popcorn instead and save the Cheetos for sleepovers with your friends!