Cookie Chemistry
Baking cookies is not exactly an art nor is it a science. But if you don’t follow the basic recipe, chocolate crinkles become chocolate bricks.
I am raising a son who loves cookies but isn’t exactly the most interested baker. You need consistency in baking. Recipes, proper chemistry of emulsion, leavening and caramelization. You cannot deviate too much, or … chocolate bricks.
When he was younger, I was frequently served a concoction from his play kitchen which he called soup…. it consisted of corn, carrots, root beer, black pepper, popcorn (popped or unpopped, no difference), cut-up hot dogs and sometimes Tabasco. Yum, yum. Never satisfied with fake ingredients or pretend, he would traipse from the real fridge to his stove and keep adding things to the mix. “BAM!” he would mimic Emeril’s famous battle cry.
Of course, Root Beer Dog Pop/Corn Chowder is absolutely wretched in one sense, but completely fabulous in another. It fails the chemistry test but scores a huge WIN in the creative category.
Cookies, on the other hand, really cannot be that creative. Choosing which ones to make offers creativity, decorating sugar cookies shapes too. But get creative on what cookies need, and they end up in the trash. Or the broken cookie plate “for the family” because you can’t give those away. Crushed and over ice cream is another good choice.
This week, I am baking Toll House cookies, schnickerdoodles and maybe peanut butter cookies. I have to find the recipe for the latter, though. For the last 35 years, I’ve been baking the first two and know the recipe by heart. The only creative bit is what kind of nut or chocolate chip I’m going to use (today’s batch has the new Reese’s mini-cups in). Otherwise, it’s an exercise in memory recall, memory lane and new memories as the Kid comes in and sweeps his fingers through the cookie dough, asks if he can have “just” one and says “BAM!” when he plops down a couple of lumps of raw dough onto the next cookie sheet on the runway.
After two and a half batches, I am spent and ready to eat some carrots to cleanse the palate. I end up giving away a bunch. Rarely will I freeze them, but in two months, they might hit the spot with a cup of coffee.
I have a friend who valiantly, each and every holiday season, makes in the neighborhood of 30 or 50 dozen cookies and gives them away to various hospital and health centers. She has become the secret cookie pusher for nursing and med tech staff who simply must work those holidays.
Makes me wonder how many bricks she has turned out, and whether or not they end up in the trash. And I wonder if Hot Dog soup will ever take off.