The Second Stage of Holiday Baking: The Fear/ by Kathleen Gibbons, Palace Line Cook
I woke up afraid this morning. Afraid of what I would see when I looked in the mirror, afraid of all the errands I had to run, and most importantly, afraid of baking my cookies. I got out of bed and got to work. After going to the store and the gas station, I walked into my kitchen and stared at my stand-up mixer. I have minimal counter space, and setting up the mixer so the top didn’t hit the undersides of my cabinets was a challenge, and I’m pretty sure it defied the laws of physics the way it rested on a cutting board on the edge of the counter. One thing I’m afraid of in the baking process is proper measurement. I can easily be distracted , and I have been know to add things at the wrong time (or just omit the ingredient altogether). I triple checked the recipe and my quantities that were going into the mixer.
I’ve been baking at home for years, and the standard equation is: flour + stand-up mixer= disaster/angry mom. Luckily I managed to not make a total mess in the kitchen, and I proceeded to roll the dough into 12-inch logs, wrap them in plastic, and let them chill in the freezer.
Five hours and half a season of “The Office” later, I got to work on baking my spice cookies. For some reason, donning an apron and listening to Frank Sinatra made sense during this ordeal. I preheated the oven, and started slicing my cookies. I suppose resting the dough logs on top of the ice cube tray wasn’t my brightest idea, as my cookies now have little indentations on the sides, but I suppose it makes them seem more homemade or something. I spread all the cookies onto my new Sur La Table baking sheets and popped them into the oven. And, as I feared,d the cookies spread out more than I’d remembered and I was left with one ENORMOUS spice cookie. One would think that as a cook in a professional kitchen, I would realize that overcrowding the pan is never a good idea. I separated all the cookies and put them on the cooling rack. Everything was ok.
Until I realized that some of them were underbaked. And that’s where my roommates come in. Slightly soft spice cookies? No problem, they’ll get eaten. I iced them with a gentle drizzle of a combination of lemon juice and powdered sugar. They look great and I think they taste good too. But the scariest thing in the baking process, for me at least, is thinking about whether or not your friends and family (in this case roommates and coworkers) will like what you bake. Will they be good? Or will they be AMAZING? Because I would prefer them to be amazing. My roommate just told me she’s already eaten all the broken cookies. I guess they must be pretty ok.
And next, I’ll conclude with the Third Stage of Holiday Baking: The Demolition.
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