Middle Minion came over to do some holiday baking. Now
Middle Minion’s idea of baking involves things that come in a package and all
you need to do is remove the plastic cover from the chicken and poke holes in
the part covering the brownie.
He wanted to make chocolate chip cookies, rice crispy
treats, “and maybe some fudge.” Yeah, I’m all over that. Yay.
I’ll let you in on a little secret: I loathe baking. I’m not
good at it. I am easily frustrated when I’m working from the recipe and all of
a sudden I discover I was supposed to be doing things in separate bowls about
three steps ago. Recipes are not written for lazy cooks. Personally, I’d like
important stuff written right above the list of ingredients.
“Get two bowls, big and small, because you’ll be mixing the
dry stuff in the small bowl and the wet ingredients in the large bowl.” This is
apparently done for no other reason than increasing the pile of dirty dishes
exponentially. Yes, yes, I’m sure there is a valid reason for this other than
the misuse of our cleaning resources, and Tam would be happy to explain them,
but not to me because the last time she tried, she got mad when I stuck my
fingers in my ears and kept saying, “la la la la, I can’t HEEEEAAARRRR you.”
So, it remains a mystery, and shall continue to be so
because who cares?
Back to the kitchen. It took me two days to gear up to the
big event. I griped and groused and carried on for quite some time, then got
down to hauling all the crap out to make cookies. These were going to be
regular cookies because there was no way I was going to attempt non-gluten
cookies. No. Way.
I called my son to the kitchen, spoke to him the words
“here’s the recipe. Here are the bowls. Make cookies.” I stayed close in case
he needed help because I’m not THAT heartless, and wow, did he need help. His
idea of measuring flour involved not stirring it first, not leveling it off
because the measuring cup wasn’t full. There was fussing and squawking and a
quick “do over.” Then he added the rest of the dry ingredients and we started
on the not-dry ingredients (although, and he had a very valid point, sugar IS a
dry ingredient, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying over my finger and me
saying la la la la, I can’t hear yooooou”).
Then he got out the vanilla. We get a very high quality
vanilla, so we measure it over the bowl so we waste nothing. He measured it and
I said, “Ok, add it.” “Here?” he asked. “Yes, just dump it in.” So he did. He
dumped it into the bowl with the flour.
“ACK! NO!”
“But you said--”
“I know, I know, my mistake. Don’t worry, it will be fine,”
I promised.
I stuck the hand mixer into the wet ingredients in order to
fluff the butter and sugar. The butter was really hard; I had just pulled it
from the fridge, so it wasn’t easy. It took a long time to mix and there were
several pieces of butter flying about the bowl and onto the front of Middle
Minion’s shirt. Despite the difficulty I managed to get it done and we were
able to add the dry ingredients.
He watched carefully as the dough thickened and he worried
that it wasn’t looking right. But I picked up a small piece and pinched it to
show him it was holding together just fine and it was now time to add the
chocolate chips. The package was dumped into the dough and I handed my son a wooden
spoon. “Stir it up, boy.”
And he did. And, according to him, it was good. It was so
good, he took another sample. And another. “You do realize you’ll need to bake
some of these, right?” “Oops.” He decided he preferred to make the pan cookie
variety because it’s not such a pain in the ass. He spread the dough (the very
sticky dough because I forgot to spray his hands with oil first) and we popped
it into the oven.
Despite them being slightly burnt, he assured us they tasted
great. We sat around for a bit, mulling over what else he wanted to make, when
he decided he wanted to make more cookies. “Only this time,” he said, “I want
to do it myself.”
“Ok,” I said with more than a little trepidation coloring my
voice. “Let me know if you need any help.”
“I will,” he said. Moments later, we could hear the sounds
of someone doing interesting things in the kitchen. Things like; swearing,
grousing about something he needed being in the sink, cabinet doors and drawers
being opened and closed while the incantation for finding things was uttered
over and over.
“How’s it going?” I asked as I worked up the courage to see
for myself.
“Great,” he answered, “I’m almost done.”
I walked into the kitchen just as he was about to put mixer
to creation. Only the novice baker had added the chips with the dry
ingredients. Granted, I could have just told him to use the wooden spoon (the
one that was still in the sink waiting to be washed), but instead I said,
“Dude, no. You added the chips at the wrong time.”
“But they’re dry, so I added them with the dry ingredients.”
“Is that how we did it the first time?”
He thought for a minute. “No?”
“I’ll show you why we don’t add them now. Give me the
mixer.”
The cookies were again proclaimed excellent and less burnt. I
will admit to being fully proud of my son for taking on the challenge of baking
cookies.
Good on him. Cookie baking is not for the faint-hearted. Love it!
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