Monday, June 28, 2010

COOKIES!!!

As a fair number of people could tell you, I am not a bad cook. In fact, I am a rather decent cook. I might even be a good one. As a somewhat fewer number of people could tell you, I am a messy cook.

When I am in the midst of a project, the kitchen invariably appears to have had a small flock of geese go through and pull things off shelves, chewing packages and leaving a medley of ingredients...well, somewhere in the kitchen. But of course, I know exactly where they all are (cough cough...really, I do) but no thank you, I don't need any help. No matter how many times one might hear me mutter "Now where did I put that spatula?"

Because I like to cook. I enjoy the insanity that I go through, whirling from counter to counter, checking the recipe then going "meh, let's do something else anyways", mashing and spooning and smashing and beating.

Food processor and electric mixer? I don't think so. We're doing this the hard way.

Because chocolate chip cookies are worth it.

And not just any chocolate chip cookies. These are the Consummate chocolate chip cookies! Of doom.

Someone actually went out and researched chocolate chip cookies. (Tough life, eh?) And experimented combined the elements that seemed to be the most successful. I thought it might be a good idea to try to make them.

Unfortunately, I cheated on the first ingredient. I don't have cake flour or bread flour. I used all-purpose flour. Gasp! The horror! Then I discovered that when sifting the dry ingredients together, the coarse salt called for doesn't actually make it through the sieve. Hmmm.

I threw it in afterwards.

I also discovered that it is a good idea to check the cupboards to see what kinds of bowls are available. Metal salad bowls that are slightly too small are not the best. But when that is all your roommate has, well...yeah maybe I should go buy bowls.

Creaming butter and sugar together in a slightly-too-small bowl is a challenge. It is necessary to either be extremely careful and therefore go slowly, or make a huge mess and get it everywhere. Or in my case, both works.

Tip: Make sure to note which ingredients get put into each bowl. It is not a good idea to sift the dry ingredients into the larger bowl because there are more of them, then cream the butter and sugar in a smaller one when you have to put the dry ingredients in the butter/sugar bowl.

When you're doing it by hand, "Using a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream butter and sugars together until very light, about 5 minutes." means "BEAT THE HELL OUT OF IT for 20 minutes."

Also "Add dry ingredients and mix until just combined, 5 to 10 seconds" translates to "Stir very slowly because your bowl is too small and you will get flour EVERYWHERE until it's all mixed together which will take 8-10 minutes."

Very important: When they tell you to add the chocolate pieces, eat some. And when the dough is done, eat some of that too.

Slightly less important: Don't wear a black shirt...



No you don't get to find out how they turn out. At least not yet. The dough is in the fridge, where it will remain for "at least 24 hours" which means I will be baking at midnight tomorrow! YAY!

3 comments:

  1. hahahaha I love this entry! It is full of awesome Robyn personality. I can totally imagine it all =)
    Here's a little tip for beating stuff in too-small-bowls (I don't have any decent baking bowls either....) : clear out the sink, and place your mini-bowl in there. At least all the spattering is easy to clean up afterwards.

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  2. PS: You know, we're all waiting eagerly to know how they turned out.

    PPS: That's probably the most involved recipe for chocolate chip cookies I've *ever* seen! Kudos to you for going with that one!!

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  3. Excellent idea for the small bowls...I will hopefully remember it next time.

    I found that actually making the recipe is a lot less involved than it appears. He's just very specific about it so that they will turn out excellent.

    Which they did, by the way. And if you ever feel like making them and you think the cookies are coming out too soft and that they need to go back in...DON'T DO IT! They harden up on their own and if you put them in longer they will be too hard.

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