Cookies

If there is one thing that I look forward to doing during the Christmas season that is baking. I like to whip up some tasty treats and share them with my friends, wife and mother. The treat of my choice is chocolate chip cookies. I wouldn't being lying if I said that I make a pretty good chocolate chip cookie. In fact at the RVCC radio bake sale in 2000 my chocolate chip cookie's were the first ones to sell out. I don't try to toss in any crazy spices or secret ingredients to wow any would be eaters. I have learned that the best ingredient in chocolate chip cookies is talent, and you can't buy that anywhere.

I used to make the cookies by hand. I'd get out the sturdiest wooden spoon I could find and start churning the cookie dough over and over again. My wrist and forearm would cramp, shoulders would burn but a delicious treat was just a few short oven minutes away. Since my wife has a Kitchen Aid mixer those old days of working by hand are gone. Just a simple drop of the ingredients and in no time there is cookie dough. With all of the advancements in cooking there is a still a crux to making good food or making bad food. That is the directions.

For chocolate chip cookies you need to use two sticks of butter. But not just any two sticks of butter, the butter has to be soft. I'm the type of person that "reads between the lines" of words. If you ask me to describe soft I would say something like pillows or Kenny G music. I guess with food my understanding of soft was not what the directions had in mind. After removing the butter from the refrigerator I decided to put the sticks in the microwave to soften them. One minute later I had a bowl of melted butter. My immediate thought, "That's soft enough."

After the mixing was finished and the dough placed on the cookie sheets I waited the alloted baking time. To my surprise the dough flattened out on the sheets and the cookies connected themselves. Okay, no problem, just separate them when they cool and enjoy. Unfortunately the cookies fastened themselves to the sheet with a grip stronger than any glue known to cookies. My error become instantly evident, the soft butter had created flat cookies. To remove these cookies I would have to use my expertise in removing ice from a car windshield on the cookie sheets. I scraped the cookies off onto a plate and made a crumbly mess in the process.

And so I was left with a pile of sad looking chocolate with cookie bits around them, stacked and mushed together on a plate. At least the concoction tasted like chocolate chip cookies but bore no resemblance to what cookie eaters are accustomed to. When I offered the cookies to my friends there was a bit of confusion but after an explanation and assurance that the cookies were safe the cookies, some of the cookies were eaten.

I wouldn't say that this was a failed attempt at cookie making but another example of discovery in the ongoing exploration of cooking. I don't know if it would be possible to do the same thing again but this time putting the dough into a cake dish and seeing if a chocolate chip cookie cake would come out. I guess that would be called a cakie. Maybe next time.