Summer of '69

I know that I've mentioned at least once before on this blog that I am a baking failure.  I really don't feel that badly about this as there are lots of fine institutions that can supplement this area of my life.  Plus, it helps to keep the weight off.  I am, however, able to produce pretty decent muffins, bread and chocolate chip cookies.  So, why I didn't start with chocolate chip cookies when asked to a Christmas Cookie Exchange, is beyond my understanding.

Instead, I began with shortbread ... which are currently melting in my children's mouths.  They taste like shortbread but my inability to produce dough that could be rolled and made into pretty stars and Christmas trees prevented them from making the Exchange cut.  It really is hard to convince a child to eat something that looks like a pile of off-white snow that refuses to melt. That was Friday.

On Saturday (after a Friday night Christmas party) I decided that I would try something akin to chocolate button cookies.  Dave simply asked, "Are you sure?"  I flashed him a look worthy of Confession.  I should listen to him more.  He really is the one most intimately acquainted with my baking and, thus, has earned the right to ask such questions.  (I do have a date with confession this week.)  Anyway, back to the cookies.

I checked with a friend and he gave me a good recipe for the chocolate cookies:  one that I had tasted before and remembered favourably.  So, I set about gathering my ingredients and began to bake on Saturday afternoon. I doubled the recipe (because it was going to be sooo good - and required 4-6 dozen) and started the measuring and mixing.  Dave joined me by rolling the little cookie balls in sugar so that they looked like dozens of chocolate Timbits awaiting their turn in the oven.   He did this while watching country music videos on Youtube (have you seen Camouflage?  Can you believe that I, I mean, he listens to this stuff?  Sheesh).   Perhaps the problem lay with the oven.

In the oven I watched as the pleasing little balls melted into pancakes.  Pancake-like cookies.  I thought, "Well, they still look pretty good and I imagine that they taste wonderful."  But then Joe tasted one, scrunched up his nose and searched through his limited mental rolodex of epicurean terms.  He settled on, "They taste sort of sour, Mom, and crumply."  I think the recipe called for twice the amount of molasses necessary.  Dave reassured me that our kids would eat them as they are sadly uninitiated when it comes to adequate baking.

So, I did something that I have never done before last night.  I baked after Elena Standard Time (7:30 pm) and produced 6 dozen of the best chocolate chip cookies ever.   All while watching a Bryan Adams concert on TV.  My baking  cuts like a knife.

The only problem is that these cookies are decidedly un-Christmassy and I think I am going to have to compensate by packaging them in really seasonal baggies.  The women attending this exchange are all devoutly Catholic; so, perhaps if I attach indulgences to my cookies, they will be a better sell.  Perhaps I could wrap up the chocolate ones, seal them with an imprimatur and assure years off of purgatory.  In fact, I think that next year's Christmas Cookie Exchange could become a real growth in holiness for area families.  At least if I am still invited.