Baked cookies at 325 for 10 years before a customer told me I was cooking them wrong

I make cookies for a small coffee shop in Portland. Last month a regular who used to work at a bakery in New York grabbed a snickerdoodle and goes 'you know these would be better if you didn't flatten them'. I was like no, that's how you get them evenly baked. She said try it my way once. So I rolled them into tall balls and let them settle on their own. They came out way chewier and thicker. Had to admit she was spot on. Has anyone else had a customer out of nowhere teach you something you should have known for years?

2 comments

2 Comments

danielw881mo ago

My buddy Dave spent 6 years running a food cart in Denver making what he called "Denver dogs" which were just regular hot dogs with canned chili and shredded cheese. Some tourist from Chicago walked up one day and asked why he wasn't grilling the buns with butter. Dave laughed it off but tried it that weekend and his sales jumped like 30% the next month. He still talks about that tourist like she was some kind of hot dog prophet. Funny how we get stuck in our ways until some random person just walks in and flips everything upside down.

casey161mo ago

Isn't it funny how someone from outside can spot what you've been overlooking for years, even when you're supposed to be the expert? I've noticed that pattern everywhere, like how my buddy the mechanic kept ignoring a weird noise in his own car until his wife pointed it out. We get so locked into our habits that it takes a fresh set of eyes to break us out of the loop.