This morning I took out the chocolate that I had prepared. When you can’t find chocolate chips in the supermarket, you buy ‘chocolat patissier’, put it in a zip lock bag and hit it with a hammer until it is the appropriate size. Then I hid the mess in our bedroom and shut the door tidied the living room.
It was too late to go get more brown sugar, so I washed my face and decided that it wouldn’t matter.
Soon after, my friends came to visit. I had offered to teach my non-baking friends children how to make cookies. (am I a bit crazy? The only answer possible is yes)
I found a big tablecloth for our table in the living room, (have I mentioned that our kitchen is the size of an envelope?) and asked children of various sizes to carry things into the living room to put on the table.
I started a kettle and asked hopefully if anyone else wanted tea. The children poured most of the apple juice in their glasses and our critter enjoyed the rest. Armed with tea, I opened my e-book reader to my favorite sweet recipes and decided that the children could read the instructions. It is educational to read. We measured butter and margarine and sugar (oh well, it’s just going to be white sugar today!) and vanilla sugar into the bowl.
Creaming ingredients together was a new concept, I think they got it after everything became runny. Then two separate children added an egg each. Who knew it was so exciting to break an egg?
When everything was thoroughly mixed up, the older kids wanted to add the chocolate. I told them that we were following THE RECIPE. So we added the flour and spices and then folded the oatmeal in.
Finally they added the chocolate. Their anticipation was at fever pitch. I definitely needed more tea. My friends sat next to each other and kept telling me how great I was to do this. (where’s my tea…?)
I set the children to putting blobs of dough that were smaller than their hands, smaller than their ears, about the size of 3 macadamia nuts smushed together…
(perhaps my instructions could be clearer?) on the cookie sheets. Okay, I never use those, on the silicon thingamajig sheets.
Oups! We turned on the oven. And waited with 3 sheets of oven ready cookie dough.
Finally we started cooking them. Success!
Thank goodness for timers on phones.
I lost interest and one of my friends took over. I knew I loved her for a good reason.
As we all tasted the cookies and complimented the children on a job well done, I finally started to relax.
It was fun to see my friends. Critter loved the children. The kids enjoyed exploring our house living room.
When they left, I gave them all the cookies and made myself some more tea.
Happy baking,
Love, February