“Organize a cookie exchange,” they said
Have you ever had a great idea that you immediately put into motion, only to realize you have absolutely no related skills that even remotely support the completion of the task?
Let’s organize a cookie exchange, I thought. That’ll be easy and fun.
• • •
8 pm: Change into Baking Clothes and channel Martha Stewart
8:10 pm: Decide to do half the recipe, since who has time to do 50 cookies?
8:20 pm: Drop bag of flour on the floor. Take pictures of myself looking like a cocaine dealer.
8:30 pm: Combine the rest of the dry ingredients.
Neither the eggs nor butter are at the required room temperature. Stick eggs in armpits to see if they warm up faster. Discover that underarms are extremely sensitive to cold things. Clean eggs off floor.
Try a different approach to room temperaturing the butter.
TIP: if you are going to nuke butter in the microwave, use a bowl instead of a plate, and don’t put it in for a full minute. ALSO, don’t leave the wrapping on the butter.
Clean microwave. Reset smoke alarm.
9 pm: Do math. Half the recipe of 50 cookies < required 36. Throw caution into the wind, double the recipe and go for it. Convince myself that dividing ¾ cups by two the first time by eyeballing it, then doing it for the second time would most definitely even things out to a proper measurement.
9:15 pm: Blend wet ingredients.
Held the hand mixer a little too high. Kitchen wall now looks like a full blender was started with the lid off.
Wondering how many cookies I can scrape off the backsplash.
9:30 pm: Appreciate that “Add in dry ingredients one by one until well blended” does NOT equate to “Throw everything in all at once to save time and try to muscle the mixture with aggressive hand blendering.”
9:45 pm: Say a prayer of thanks that I still have both my eyes as one of the blender legs pops out from force of use, spins across the counter and lands in the sink.
Unable to reinstall the blender leg thing. Abandon hand mixer entirely and relegate myself to the old school spatula.
9:55 pm: Sweating. I feel like a human cement truck.
Take a break and eat chocolate chip shrapnel off the floor.
10:10 pm: Do laps around the kitchen while punching the air, to “Eye of the Tiger.” Refuse to be beaten by cookies. Return to kitchen for round two.
The spatula is locked in the batter like a cemented fencepost. Fantasize about dumping the entire mixture onto a tray and baking one ginormus supercookie.
10:15 pm: There is no room or time to add in the nuts.
Mash what I can into the large impenetrable cookie blob and hope some nuts eventually make their way in.
10:20 pm: Cookie trays are nowhere to be found. Do not remember that I apparently gave them all away because I don’t cook or bake.
10:21–10:26 pm: Swear.
10:35 pm: Borrow a cookie tray from my neighbour. Field questions of why I look like I just cut 15 blocks of cocaine and have chocolate all over my face. Leave white footprints on her carpet.
Grasp that I must make 50 cookies with a single cookie sheet.
10:40 pm: Read instructions on how to scoop and place on parchment paper. Wonder A) What is parchment paper? and B) If it is the same as tin foil.
10:50 pm: B) Confirm that it is not.
10:55 pm: Throw first batch of foil-lined cookies out. Start writing hate post on cookies.
11:10 pm: Go to neighbour’s house (again) and trade a cookie for parchment paper. Do not mention the foil on the back of the cookie.
11:20 pm: Take first batch of somewhat edible cookies out of the oven, slightly burnt because I forgot about them when I was typing my hate post.
11:21 pm: Burn fingers and roof of mouth.
11:40 pm: Scoop, scrape, pat, bake. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Wonder why the giant pile of cookie dough in the bowl isn’t getting any smaller. Cookie sizes are getting decidedly larger.
12:10 am: Halfway done.
Crumbling like a cookie and fading fast, I find a rolled-up rubber sheet under an oven mitt that says that it can be used to bake cookies. SCORE!
12:15 am: Scoop cookie dough onto rubber thing as if it was a flat pan. Pick up the sides to put the sheet in the oven. Like quarters on a sheet of paper, watch all the cookie balls roll together into the middle into one big blob. Watch one roll off the sheet, into the oven, and onto the element despite my panicked screams.
As the dough starts to burn and smell, wonder if the self-cleaning oven will really clean itself.
12:30 am: Forget to set timer *again* and pull burnt cookies out of the oven. Start actually hating cookies.
• • •
1 am: Survey the collateral damage of every spoon, bowl, measuring tool, and baking utensil that was used and discarded in this cookie-tastrophy. The recipe is stuck somehow to the side of the dishwasher.
But I AM DONE!
Or am I?
One of the cookie trays is missing.
Apparently, I turned off the oven but didn’t remove the last batch of cookies.
1:15 am: Dispose of the charred remains of the last four cookies.
• • •
1:45 am: Collapse on the couch. Wonder if the pain in my stomach is the shame of being beaten by cookies, or from eating raw cookie dough in between batches.
• • •
9 am: Pack up my slightly singed, misshapen, variously-sized cookies, and get excited to drown these motherfuckers in milk.
Hilarious. They look delicious!……its the thought that counts.
Happy New Year Michelle.
I’ve got some extra ones if you want! You are absolutely hilarious. Next time call in reinforcements. Cause not only can I garden, I also make amazing cookies! Happy New Year!