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CASE 002: THE $250 COOKIE
Opened: August 2, 1999   Status: CLOSED   Verdict: HOAX   Cookies: EXCELLENT
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THE SPECIMEN

This one came from my mother, who got it from Aunt Ruth, who got it from her hairdresser. In my own words:

A woman and her daughter have lunch at the Neiman Marcus café in Dallas and finish with a chocolate chip cookie so good she asks for the recipe. The waitress says she can't give it away, but the woman can buy it for "two-fifty." Sounds fair, she says, put it on my bill. A month later her credit card statement comes: $250, not $2.50. The store won't take it back. So for revenge, she's giving the recipe away to everybody on the Internet for free, and you're supposed to help her by passing it on. The recipe follows.

HISTORY

This is an old story in a new store. Before it was Neiman Marcus, it was told about Mrs. Fields, and her company went so far as to put up signs saying it had never sold its recipe to anybody. Before that, the same revenge story was told about a red velvet cake at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York. The dessert changes, the store changes, the price goes up with inflation. The revenge stays exactly the same.

ANALYSIS

1. The store says no. Neiman Marcus has said, over and over, that it never sold anybody a cookie recipe, for $2.50 or $250.

2. The money part doesn't add up. If a store hit your credit card for $250 you thought was $2.50, you'd call the card company and dispute the charge. You wouldn't need to take your revenge by e-mail.

3. No names, no dates. Who was she? When was this? Which Dallas store? The letter never says, which is how it stays "recent" no matter what year you get it.

4. It gets strangers to bake. Which brings me to the experimental section.

REPLICATION

The claim that the store charged $250 can't be tested in my kitchen. The claim that the cookie is worth it can. So on Saturday, August 14, 1999, I cleared off the counter and went to work. I'm not going to reprint the recipe, since it's probably in your inbox already, but the short version is a big oatmeal chocolate chip cookie with two twists: you grind the oats to powder in a blender first, and you grate a whole chocolate bar into the dough on top of the chips. The full recipe makes an enormous batch, so I cut it in half.

STEPOBSERVATION
Grind oatsBlender made a noise I've only heard from the rotovap once before. Fine powder obtained. Kitchen now has a light oat haze.
Grate chocolate barAbout a third of the bar ended up on the counter, my shirt and, somehow, the ceiling fan.
MixDough very stiff. Hand mixer gave up; finished with a wooden spoon and forearm strength.
Bake, trial 1375°F for the six minutes the letter says. Result: warm dough. In my oven, anyway.
Bake, trial 2375°F, nine minutes. Golden edges, soft middle. This is the one.
YieldI stopped counting at fifty. My roommate did not stop eating at fifty.
CostAbout $11 in groceries for the half batch, mostly the nuts and chocolate. Still a better deal than $250.

Taste panel: my roommate Kevin, three first-year students from my lab, and Mr. Leonard, who cleans our floor of the building at night. Average score, 8.7 out of 10. Mr. Leonard gave it a 10 and took four for the road.

CONCLUSION

The story: HOAX. The cookies: EXCELLENT. And that's the funny part. People pass this recipe around for free because somebody supposedly paid $250 for it, and it turns out to be a really good cookie. The legend is the best advertising a recipe ever had.

If you want my half-batch notes with the nine-minute baking time, e-mail me and I'll send them. No forwarding required.

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Neil Pickering · [email protected]
Last updated: Sunday, September 19, 1999