Friday, December 11, 2009

The Grand Fiasco.

I just came back from baking cookies at my friend's house.
It was a disaster.
She has apparently never made cookies or cake or anything from scratch before in her entire life, a great worshipper of the boxed cake mixes and refrigerated slice-and-bake cookie dough rolls.

Earlier today, discussing whether homemade or storebought cookies are better:
Me: "Homemade cookies taste better."
Judy: "You can't even tell if you don't taste them side by side."
Me: "People will be impressed if you tell them you made cookies yourself."
Judy: "If you don't mention it, nobody will even think about it."
Me: "Homemade cookies are more thoughtful to give to people."
Judy: "Storebought cookies are more convenient."
Etc, etc, etc.
There was no baking soda or vanilla extract in her house, so we made a quick stop at mi casa for me to dash into my kitchen and retrieve the necessary ingredients. She was unsure of the purpose of baking soda. I told her it was so the cookies would rise. She was unsure of what rising was.
She only had one egg in her fridge, so we sent her dad to get another carton. Then I couldn't find any butter in there.
Me: "You don't have any butter..."
Judy: "Yeah I do... right here."
And then she pulls out this big tub of fake-vegetable-oil-butter-flavored-spread.
Me: "...that's not butter."
Judy: "Yes it is, look."
And then she points at the word "butter" in the phrase "butter flavored spread."
Me: "Well okay then we'll see how this goes."
And then I open the tub.
Me: "Um. It's empty."
Judy: "Oh. Whoops."
So she calls her dad at the store and tells him to get more butter. Guess what he brings back? Another tub of 48% vegetable oil "butter flavored" spread.
Me: "Sigh. Okay, I guess we'll just put in a little more flour."
So we're sticking all the ingredients in a bowl and beating it all into a fine greasy mess, thanks to the oily fake-butter concoction.
Judy: "This beater feels really hot."
Me: *adds sugar*
Judy: "I think it's overheating."
Me: "Okay, we better hurry before it breaks, then."
So we throw the rest of the stuff in and she flicks the beater on high speed.
Me: "Hurry gogogogogo the top is starting to smoke I think hurry gogogogo!!"
I smash a couple eggs into the bowl, glug in the vanilla, and dump in the flour.
Beater: *breaks*
We dumped the smoking, useless appliance in the backyard and stir the rest of the ingredients in by hand. It is a slow, grueling process, but we are finally ready to plop greasy balls of dough onto trays. We stick them in the oven for ten minutes, then check to see if they're done.
Me: "Ehhh they could use a couple more minutes."
Judy: "Okay!" *punches button*
I didn't see that she entered FIFTEEN more minutes of baking time, when I had meant just two or three. And I didn't realize until it had been quite a while...
Me: "Hey, the oven hasn't beeped yet."
Judy: "Well it still has five minutes to go."
Me: "??? How much more time did you put it in for???"
Judy: "Fifteen minutes..."
The cookies are almost completely blackened.
The next few batches come out looking fine... but then we tasted them.
Us: "EW."
That butter spread stuff really messed up the cookies. They tasted like dry, dense lumps of ickiness that even her little brother wouldn't eat.

I don't think I convinced her that homemade cookies are better than storebought ones.

1 comment:

Alyssa Auch said...

:) I'm enjoying your blog! I found it while randomly looking through blogs, and I think you are a really fun writer! Keep it up!