More than a decade after the last disaster, it was time to face the cookies.
Scottish shortbread, that’s what defeated me all those years ago. The melting, burnt-edged goo spreading across the pan sent me screaming from the stove and the ruined pastry within. I vowed never again to bake sweets.
I shouldn’t admit it. No good food blogger should ever admit it. But there’s no use pretending. Since that day, I’ve never even made a pie crust. Stick my head in the freezer and pop my behind with a wet kitchen towel, but it’s true.
So a couple of weeks ago the annual office Christmas cookie exchange party was coming, and I was nervous. Last year I cheated. Instead of attempting anything related to dough, I made haystacks — a can of “Chinese noodles” from the fake-Asian food aisle, a can of peanuts, some baking chocolate melted in the microwave, stir, and you get something resembling cookies. I used dark baking chocolate, so people loved them, calling them “a grown-up desert.”
But, oh, the shame.
I don’t know what came over me. When this years’ exchange party invitation came, I fired off a response before thinking. Peanut butter cookies, I promised.
The night before the party, I trembled as I leafed through the best food reference book I own: the America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook. The recipes can be complex and a bit fussy sometimes, but if you follow the steps exactly, you will get a good result. I made my list and headed hopefully to the store.
Working on the premise that good ingredients make good dishes, I bought unadulterated, pure peanut butter, locally-produced farmstead dairy butter, organic sugars (white and brown), farm-fresh local eggs and locally-milled all-purpose flour (from down the road at Big Spring Mill in Elliston, Virginia). Then I set about mixing the dough.
The signs did not seem to favor me, however. My electric hand mixer died in the butter and sugar.
Grrrr. Grrrrr. Silence.
I wailed: “Damn! I knew I was cursed!” My beloved spouse reading in a living room chair avoided the searing gaze from the kitchen.
I jiggled the cord. And jiggled it. It popped back on. “Oh, plug was loose in the socket,” I murmured.
Sounds of newspaper pages turning came from the living room.
Things smoothed out. The batter was airy and light. I became confident.
“You know what this needs,” I said rhetorically. “Dark chocolate chunks.”
Hopeful look from living room chair.
I rifled in the cabinet, pulled out two bars of Equal Exchange Very Dark Organic chocolate, whipped out the chef’s knife and chopped, then flung it into the bowl with a flourish.
“Mmmm…and black walnuts would be unusual,” I added.
Tentative look from chair.
“Relax, it’ll be fine. This is easy. This is fun!”
Mix, mix, mix. I had doubled the recipe, so at this point, I divided it into two oval blobs of dough, wrapped them in plastic wrap and bunged them into the refrigerator for tomorrow’s baking. The party would start at 2 p.m.
So, you think I’ve been leading you up to a funny disaster story.
Nope. They turned out perfectly.
Well.
There was one terrible moment in the middle of baking when I realized I’d forgotten to do the cross-hatching on a couple dozen of the cookies. I quickly pulled the half-cooked dough-balls out of the oven and danced around to the rhythmic tune of “Damn! Damn! Damn! I knew I would screw them up. I knew it!”
Then came wisdom from the chair: “Chill out, will you. Just do the smooshing now. They’re still super soft.”
“Yeah. OK. That’s working. Thanks.” (Heavy breathing)
So, the moral of this story is: You too can break the cookie curse. Try out this recipe, which is my interpretation of the America’s Test Kitchen version. With nuts and chocolate added, it will make about 60 cookies.
Tags: America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, baking, chocolate, Christmas, cookies, Equal Exchange, haystacks, peanut butter
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