• normalentrance@lemmy.zip
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    6 hours ago

    There are a couple of pricey delivery cookie places by my house.

    I never used them before, but I was curious how much cookies actually cost these days. Getting a single cookie is $2.50 in-store, delivery is $7, so getting that single cookie delivered would be $9.50.

    Getting a single cookie, however big, is crazy so you have to get two right? So that is $13. Then a tip and taxes, and damn that’s an expensive set of cookies.

    • CrowAirbrush@lemmy.world
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      1 hour ago

      Damn and y’all tip the driver too? We pay like 3 bucks for delivery unless we order enough crap then it’s free at most places.

      Delivery driver gets a regular wage no matter what.

  • |IlI|lIIl|IlIll|Il|IllI|@lemmy.world
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    13 hours ago

    Wanna use this opportunity to shill an awesome cookie recipe by Adam Regusea.

    Recipe :

    Ingredients

    • 113g (1 stick) butter
    • 200g sugar (1 cup granulated or brown, but I prefer 1 2/3 cups powdered sugar)
    • 5-10g (1-2 teaspoons) molasses (optional, replicates the taste of brown sugar)
    • 1 egg
    • 10g (1 teaspoon of Morton whatever brand you want kosher) salt (use 2/3rds of that if your butter is salted)
    • 4-8g (1-2 teaspoons) vanilla extract
    • 3g (1/2 teaspoon) baking soda
    • 230g (about 1.5 cups) bread flour (1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour is OK instead)
    • 100g chocolate chips or other mix-ins

    Instructions

    1. Get the oven (convection if possible) heating to 375ºF/190ºC
    2. Melt the butter
    3. Mix in the sugar (and optional molasses) until smooth
    4. Mix in the egg until very smooth
    5. Mix in the salt (FYI, some people might not like their cookies as salty as I do), vanilla, baking soda, flour and chips

    The dough should be a little sticky — you can chill it for a few minutes to make it easier to shape.

    1. Divide the dough into six 115g portions and roll each into something like a golf ball.

    2. Space them evenly on a baking sheet — no parchment paper or grease necessary (but you can use parchment paper if wanted).

    3. Flatten each ball into something like a hockey puck and tidy up the circular shape.

    4. Turn the oven off and turn the broiler/grill on maximum.

    5. Give it a minute or two to heat up, then put in the cookies near the top.

    6. Let the broiler brown the tops of the cookies until golden — this should only take a minute, so don’t walk away or they’ll burn.

    7. If you’re doing multiple pans of cookies, brown them each one at a time.

    8. Turn the broiler off and the oven back on to 375ºF/190ºC.

    9. Give the broiler a couple minutes to cool down, then return the cookies to the oven.

    10. Bake until they spread and look done to you — mine take about eight minutes as this stage, but they’ll take longer if you don’t have a convection fan.

    For perfect “chewy” texture, take them out when they just look a hair under-baked.

    Let the cookies cool and solidify before scraping them off the baking sheet.

    • starik@lemmy.zip
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      10 hours ago

      If you’re making chocolate chip cookies, I highly recommend browning half of the butter in a pan. Heat it on medium low, stirring, until it starts to turn brown. Then pour it into a bowl and let it cool a minute before mixing in/melting the rest of the butter (you don’t want the new butter to sizzle when you add it). It really adds a great, distinctive flavor that the best chocolate chip cookies have.

    • merc@sh.itjust.works
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      14 hours ago

      If there’s one ingredient where you really don’t need to use a specific brand it’s salt.

      • Bassman1805@lemmy.world
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        13 hours ago

        True, but when measuring by volume it IS important to be clear about whether you’re using coarse or fine salt. The distinction is not important if you measure ingredients by mass like a civilized person.

        • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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          6 hours ago

          Let me rant about sour cream. In America, land of the free, home of the brave, we measure things by volume. Why? Because fuck you, that’s why, I guess. When you need sour cream, you look at it and see “oz”, ahh, ounces, okay, so how many fluid ounces are in a cup? Alright, let me look that up and… Wait a second. That’s “oz” not “fl oz”. That’s the weight ounce, not the volume fluid ounces!

          It was at this point in the conversation that my wife got frustrated and said it was probably the same. To which I protest, no, it’s not, they’re different! To know how much volume is in this stupid container of sour cream I need to look up the fucking density of sour cream or just guesstimate based on if I think it’s gonna fit in a measuring cup or whatever. And you know they’re playing with shrink flation and that thing where your brain has trouble with certain shapes and thinks it’s bigger than it really is.

          So imagine my frustration when writing this post that I randomly decide to look up how much a fluid ounce of water weighs, because I think at one point that was brought up and I said we shouldn’t assume water and sour cream have the same density. But apparently a fluid ounce of water weighs 1.041 ounces. And also, apparently the density of sour cream is extremely close to water. According to this god-forsaken website it is 1.0125 ounces per fluid ounce.

          Screenshot of a horrible looking website. God have mercy on who sees this. Words cannot describe it. A cacophony of images overlaps grids. Through the chaos one can see that it is 8.1 oz/US cup

          SO IMAGINE HOW STUPID I FEEL THAT AFTER WRITING ALL THIS TO VENT ABOUT IT, THAT YES, IN FACT, AN OUNCE OF SOUR CREAM IS ABOUT A FLUID OUNCE.

          I hope this brought you joy.

        • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works
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          13 hours ago

          Exactly - this is usually why chefs are recommending a specific brand. For volumetric measurements used in backwards countries using a different brand with a different grain size can significantly alter what a teaspoon of salt ends up tasting like. Some salts are also “saltier” than others even at the same mass so brand can make a difference on multiple levels.

        • merc@sh.itjust.works
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          13 hours ago

          Especially true when it’s something like flour which can be massively different in density if it’s poured or scooped or packed in.

        • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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          11 hours ago

          Depending on what you’re doing with it grain size and texture can also matter. Not sure I can think of how it would matter for salt in a cookie, but using rock sugar for butter cream frosting would work poorly, for example.

        • Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works
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          12 hours ago

          This is a classic tollhouse chocolate chip cookie recipe with the exception of the broiler technique and the melted butter. Both of which are pretty great, because they’d increase the outside crunch while leaving the inside soft. Be sure to let your melted butter cool enough that it doesn’t prematurely cook your egg. I’m interested that he uses confectioners sugar, which contains cornstarch, which would balance out the heaviness of the bread flour… And then molasses… I guess he wants the flavor of brown sugar but with a finer grain, and adjusted everything else to make that happen? But then why coarse salt?

    • blackjam_alex@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      You forgot the:

      • Fluffy white factory made pre-sliced sandwich bread
      • 6-7 LBS beef
      • A whole bottle of white wine
      • 3 LBS ground meat
      • 6 quarts of stock
      • Bottled ginger garlic paste
      • 50 watermelons
      • 20 eggs (yes, 20!)
      • American Cheese (may be called “a really bad idea” elsewhere)
      • A large quantity of softened butter
  • Ricky Rigatoni@piefed.zip
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    17 hours ago

    I hope this is a fictitious example and he’s not actually paying almost $20 for a cookie.

    But I’ve talked to enough Californians to know how much some people are willing to pay for things.

    • QuantumSparkles@sh.itjust.works
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      10 hours ago

      "Food $200

      Data $150

      Rent $800

      Cookies $3,600

      Utility $150

      someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this. my family is dying"

      “Spend less on cookies”

      “No”

        • drolex@sopuli.xyz
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          4 hours ago

          Yeah. Their family is dying. They need to spend more on cookies, not less.

          • Oascany@lemmy.world
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            2 hours ago

            You’re right I vote to get rid of the food budget entirely. That’s 10 more cookies a month.

    • taiyang@lemmy.world
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      15 hours ago

      Maybe with DoorDash fees, but if that’s the case then this guy fucking deserves bankruptcy.

    • ch00f@lemmy.world
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      13 hours ago

      A friend of mine moved to SF right out of college. A year or so later, he told me that he visited Busch Gardens Williamsburg which is a theme park near where we grew up. It was originally owned by Anheuser-Busch, so you can get beer basically anywhere in the park.

      He had this to say:

      “You know, this is the first time I’ve been since turning 21. I was surprised to see how cheap the beer was. They were only charging $8 a pint.”

      • potpotato@lemmy.world
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        10 hours ago

        Was he surprised a pint of beer in general was $8 or specifically at an amusement park? Because, for the latter, that is surprising.

        • ch00f@lemmy.world
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          7 hours ago

          He was surprised it was $8 in an amusement park.

          This was also like 14 years ago. Might need to update the dollar amount when I tell this story.

    • grue@lemmy.world
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      15 hours ago

      I hope nobody is stupid enough to pay $3.75 for a cookie, let alone any of those other prices!

    • BigDiction@lemmy.world
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      14 hours ago

      Yeah if you’re used to California prices most places feel like a deal. I don’t bat an eye paying $4.70 a gallon for gas currently.

  • BigBrownDog@lemmy.world
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    17 hours ago

    There’s a lot of things lately that I realized that I don’t really care for now that they are expensive anyway. I haven’t paid for XBox Game Pass since it went up. I’m not missing it. I haven’t had Neflix or Spotify in 2 years. I don’t miss it. Losing Amazon Prime saved me a ton of cash and made me realize I was buying crap I didn’t need. I haven’t had McDonald’s, Chipotle, or Jimmy John’s in a long time. Don’t miss it.

    • Thebeardedsinglemalt@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      I haven’t had Neflix or Spotify

      For the last few years I ask for a 1 yr gift card for Spotify premium, costs like $99 so it balances not terrible for the year.

      But especially since I have an AdGuard home DNS, I’m loving tubi. Haven’t seen an ad and the selection isn’t bad.

      • BigBrownDog@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

        I’ll check it out. Unfortunately I have comcast and I’m forced to use their modem/router. Could I still set up an AdGuard DNS with it?

        I had my own modem and router, but it mysteriously stopped working and comcast can’t figure out why. Happened with 2 modems, but theirs works fine.

        • couch1potato@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          7 hours ago

          You can set up a pfsense router behind your other router and install stuff on pfsense, including adblockers, dns, etc.

          Basically you’ll go into your Comcast router, set up a static IP to be in the DMZ, and have that IP designated to the MAC address of your pfsense box.

          There may be more to it as I haven’t messed with my routers in quite a while. I’m sure someone will correct me 😂

        • toynbee@piefed.social
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          9 hours ago

          When I was in a similar situation, I accepted the vendor managed router / modem, then just setup my network as a client. The vendor solution sat there and advertised to itself while my subnet respected my DNS solutions.

        • Thebeardedsinglemalt@lemmy.world
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          8 hours ago

          I’d never use an IP provided router so I can’t say specifics. I’d hope you’d at least be able to config your own wifi settings like SSIDs, network passwords and such. If you’re able to set the primary DNS then you’re golden.

          As for the device, it’s stupid easy but requires buying a raspberry pi. Tons of vids on YouTube how to set it up; it’s just downloading the OS and adguard to a micro sd card, set a password and do basic configs. I think NetworkChuck did a good video on it but there are others that legit take yours step by step.

          The only downside is if you use phone apps/games that are tied to ads. It will block those ads, which some apps would then fail to register the ad’s completion so you won’t get the “reward”.

      • hansolo@lemmy.today
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        11 hours ago

        Most people have no idea how expensive it is not knowing how to cook.

        I genuinely can’t understand why people complain about having no money and then spend $50 on $4 worth of food to have someone bring it to you in more time then it takes to make.

        Someone somewhere right now is ordering pasta, the highest margin restaurant for item, at a 900% markup compared to basic ingredients in the store. And it takes longer. And tastes worse by the time it gets there.

        • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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          11 hours ago

          What we want are cafeterias and automats.

          What we get are finely crafted artisan pasta experiences, and empty closed buildings, but nothing in between.

          • hansolo@lemmy.today
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            10 hours ago

            You say that, but cafeterias and automats are usually wholly impersonal mass produced garbage like fast food in another wrapper. That’s what they were when they were new, a la carte prison food. They would bet slammed for not being authentic enough for some reason.

              • hansolo@lemmy.today
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                2 hours ago

                Sure, but fresh food is perishable, making this a more expensive prospect. Economies of scale doesn’t apply to a flat line of food waste. Fruits and veg only have so many days before they go off.

                Chipotle used to be the single-cuisine version of exactly this, and look what happened to it. Chopt does all fresh veg and over 25 years only has 70 locations. And neither of these things are cheap.

              • Brave Little Hitachi Wand@feddit.uk
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                4 hours ago

                I’d have no problem with that, of course. But that would do best in bigger cities, and there’s always going to be a significant advantage to knowing how to DIY. Specialization is for insects, never de-skill willingly.

      • Tetragrade@leminal.space
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        10 hours ago

        It costs [your wage] to bake bread, if you start doing it daily instead of buying, and aren’t having fun. I’m pretty sure if it became price-competitive to home bake then society would collapse.

        Yes I know the quality isn’t comparable, but what are we making? Sandwiches? Toast?

        • Brave Little Hitachi Wand@feddit.uk
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          4 hours ago

          I can do the hydration math in my head and spend about six minutes of total active time making a crusty boule or a loaf of sandwich bread for about 60-80¢ of ingredients. You can substitute a lot of time for kneading, it’s easy as hell.

          The quality isn’t comparable, it is price competitive, and if my not buying shitty bread did make society collapse, I would die of happiness.

    • WhiteOakBayou@lemmy.world
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      15 hours ago

      I found buying premade dough from the store is cheaper than buying the cookies cooked in the store’s bakery but only barely. Buying cookies at those chain cookie shops or in the middle of the grocery store are always high though. I’m sure making the dough is the way to go as far as cost goes but haven’t tried it to do for the direct comparison.

      • ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zip
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        15 hours ago

        Then you’re doing it wrong?

        It’s a few ingredients mixed in a bowl, then slapped on a baking sheet. It’s one of the simplest baked goods you can make.

        • driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br
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          13 hours ago

          Did I said they were hard to make? They’re easy as you said, but until you practice a lot and use good ingredients they’re going to be meh.

        • Scipitie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          14 hours ago

          “cookie” I assume is not easily translatable I assume just to be optimistic about the “not easy” part.

          At least in German, the direct translation “Keks” can be cream filled monstrosities with nuts on top and … I’m going shopping, see you later!

          But the run-of-the-mill cookie that cookie clicker made famous … Yeah, an oven, a bowl and if you’re lazy an electric mixer.

          I’ll estimate that anyone will need a maximum of four tries and they’ll get it.

          • The first because the cookies get too dry or burned
          • The second try because they thought they mixed it wrong and deviated unnecessarily from the recipe.
          • The third one because they realize that the dough is tasty and … gone?!
          • Delicious cookies.
          • Soupbreaker@lemmy.world
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            14 hours ago

            I had never heard of cookie clicker, assumed it was some youtube personality, and was vaguely annoyed at the implication that this imaginary person was somehow responsible for popularizing regular-ass chocolate chip cookies. Having investigated, I’m mystified by how such a “game” accrued any kind of success. I guess I’m flummoxed by the concept of idle games in general. May as well just watch a screensaver.

            Anyhow, cookies are great, and easy to make! I like to use parchment paper for mine, but I used to have a silicone baking mat which also worked well. Neither are really necessary, though—just a humble cookie sheet is all you need.

            • Scipitie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              13 hours ago

              Yeah that game was … A thing. I have very fond memories because it thought me a lot about JavaScript and system clock stuff. Although I have to damit I also watched the pipe screensaver back in the days for way too long to “find the patterns”.

              But on topic: I agree! And I learned a new term - very heard of a “cookie sheet” beforehand. Thank you!

          • ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zip
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            14 hours ago

            that cookie clicker made famous

            Did you not have chocolate chip cookies on Germany until…the mid 2000s?

            They’ve been like the default/staple home dessert in the US since like the 50s. They’re so engrained in Americans’ concept of home that realtors often toss some in the oven before a tour to convince potential buyers it feels like home based on the smell.

            • Scipitie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              14 hours ago

              Incidentally, the pure chocolate chip cookie is most often sold as American Cookie!

              But the cookie clicker was a pure associative jump I have to admit - it wasn’t my first contact with chocolate cookies :)

              But traditionally the hike baked cookies have a huge variety especially around Christmas. There really are several items that I personally would not count as cookie but which are called that regionally apparently. Vanillekipferl from the south or Kokosmakronen from I have no idea where.

  • Juniperus@infosec.pub
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    10 hours ago

    I paid $160 for my electricity last month. This month the bill came and the watt-hours used was the same but the bill was for $200.

    • Zwiebel@feddit.org
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      4 hours ago

      💀that’s a crisp $480 per year more

      Do you have a balcony or even just a window you can hang a solar panel from? It might even be worth financing one