And we’re back. We’re here on a bright and crisp Tuesday, just six days before Christmas and all through the house – well, the clattering of cookie sheets, the buzz of the mixer. All the sounds of the holidays. I’m bringing you the essential elements of the cookie-baking event. It’s as if you are right here, watching the excitement from your homes. The list of possibilities has been pared down to only the six top vote-getters from previous years. We have a new entry this year, because I could only find peppermint Hershey kisses, which we didn’t think would pair well with peanut. So, it’s a peppermint / chocolate combo. Her Ladyship is perched in her designated seat of command at the dining room table, recipe books at the ready. She’s issuing instructions to the kitchen, where Princess Elizabeth has prepped the cookie sheets, uncovered the mixer, brought out every conceivable utensil, unleashed the waxed paper and parchment. (Why do we have parchment? Wasn’t that something that medieval popes used to jot down their thoughts?). Anyway, the day is simmering with promise.
This year we’re set. Shopping for the ingredients is always a scavenger hunt, but this year, only a couple of things weren’t available – the aforementioned kisses and red icing. We’ve had to substitute green, which still maintains the dignity of the season. It was either that or purple. I’m always left searching for the really hard-core stuff. You know, the ones that will cause normally well-trained store employees, even the veterans, to pause, frown, and look wildly around as if maybe my request will materialize in front of them. While the grocery store employees are frantically restocking normal items – cake mixes, flour and sugar, that sort of thing, I have them stopping to search every aisle for some obscure ingredient. Out back to the store rooms, up to the manager’s office, out to the parking lot they go. Once again, I search the baking aisle for an infinite variety of chocolate bits – semi-sweet, bitter-sweet, barely-sweet, milk and dark chocolate, white chocolate, chocolate / peanut butter, toffee bits, chocolate with bits of other stuff mixed in like Earl Grey tea and avocado. OK, not that last ones. But if there were an avocado cookie, the Princess would request it.
One of the complications forming in recent years is that Elizabeth checks expiration dates closely. That’s followed by finger-pointing, stern looks, and written reprimands. That baking powder I bought in 2010, apparently isn’t still good. So out it goes, and then I find two more bought last year and that had slid to the back of the cabinet. Now, we have three, along with two bottles of molasses and, surprisingly two unopened jars of paprika. There must have been a paprika blight somewhere along the way. And, we’re back. The first two varieties of cookies are coming out – the butterscotch/pretzels and the snickerdoodles are rolling off the assembly line. Spacing is essential, because otherwise they’re liable to melt together into one gigantic cookie. An addition last year was something with pretzels. I debated for what seemed like hours over the best type of pretzel to purchase because my instructions said “small twisted pretzels”, only to find out later they’re crushed to a fine dust, so it didn’t really matter which ones I bought. I could have used floor scrapings from the pretzel factory. Elizabeth is the raw materials supervisor. She mixes the ingredients, prepares the ovens – oh yes, we’ll keep two working constantly at different temperatures and with the oven racks spaced out so we can switch the sheets periodically. May we assume that those on the bottom rack cook faster until their tans are just right? The mixer is whirring, flour is flying like a blizzard in Buffalo, pounds of flour and butter are disappearing. In between, she’s bringing unbaked cookies from the formation center to the oven, then bringing the cooked ones back for the final, finishing touches of sprinkles, confectioner’s sugar, whatever will give it an attractive “sheen”. Sugars are like chocolate bits – there is an infinite variety. There’s the granulated, which is the basic white sugar to the novice. There’s brown sugar, which has a become a family – dark brown to different shades of light brown. Confectioner’s sugar is the finely ground, powdery one that gets everywhere, particularly all over your clothes when you eat the cookie that’s coated in it. The kitchen looks like that t-shirt that says, “it looks like there was a struggle.”
The cookies are emerging. Elizabeth had a zoom call, so I was deputized to prepare some of the batter elements. Now, however, I’m back, and my level of anxiety is diminishing. I’ll be used in the utility outfield / cleanup. Most of the cookies came out as intended. We started freezing a bunch last year so they wouldn’t all end up like the Dead Sea Scroll by Christmas. They’ll be fresh and bursting with flavor if we remember to unthaw them at some point. At least that’s the story I hear as I clean out the freezer so we can fit them in.
My role in this is several steps down the ladder. As I may or may not have mentioned before, I’m rather like Dobby, the house elf in Harry Potter. Although I’ve been told my demeanor is more like that other one, the deeply unhappy one, Kreacher. I was historically called the house elf several times in the past, called into service for emergency washing of the mixer bowl or whips. I lend a hand when needed and hovering anxiously on the periphery. Around these parts, I prefer to think of myself as “Mr. Clean”. I wipe down the mixer paddle for the next go-around, keep the scrapers, bowls and spatulas coming, occasionally making a dash to the spice rack. Sometimes, it seems, I’m like one of the nurses in surgery, handing the surgeon equipment. In the memorable past cookie bake, Elizabeth did, in a commanding voice, request “SPATULA”, extending a hand as she was hunched over the mixer.
It looks like this year’s bake will be quite successful, meeting benchmarks of previous years. The cookies are nestled all snug in their plastic compartments. They’re stacked and awaiting distribution. What we professionals call “a good bake”. That’s the last official preparation for the season except for Christmas dinner itself. I’m not sure if every household has protocols and schedules as we do. Her Ladyship, even in times of incapacity, still maintains order and, above all, schedules. Should you wish to adopt our system, here it is in a nutshell: the initial, sporadic, shopping, beginning midsummer to early fall. Then the serious shopping begins and continues until about Thanksgiving. I did mention the wrapping inventory, so no need to regurgitate that. That’s followed up closely by the Christmas card writing. It takes a day or two of hunting down what we have in stock, determining whether we like them or not, and should we buy more? Do we have return labels? There is a one to two day writing out of the cards, with a pruning of the Christmas Card List, additions and subtractions. Sometimes, subtractions become re-additions, as we get cards from those that we’d crossed off the list in hopes they’d forgotten about us. I don’t do any writing because, as I’ve been regularly informed over the years, my handwriting is, in a word, substandard, so Herself does this, perched over her workspace like a monk in a medieval monastery copying out the Bible. Once they’ve been delivered to the Post Office for mailing, we can turn our attention to the wrapping protocols. I’ve described this in great detail in other writings, so if you’re truly interested, feel free to visit several previous blogs. It is, however, an event of epic proportions. Finally, the cookie bake is like the final free skate and giant slalom at the Winter Olympics, or final House vote in an election year.
This concludes the cookie bake for another year. Five varieties, way more than we should sensibly eat, but attractively laid out and at the ready. I’ll sample a few before my afternoon nap. Then a few more with my evening tea. Once again, the cookie bake is in the record books, like Olympic scores. The cooling racks are tucked away and the cookie sheets returned to their shelves. The mixer is breathing a deep, great sigh of relief. The butter and egg containers are piled high in the trash. The chocolate inventory has been recalibrated and repacked, along with the pecans, with other stuff we didn’t need or use. They’ll stand ready for next year, except, wait . . . . . past their expiration dates. All is calm, all is bright – until we start cooking Christmas dinner. I’m not sure if Tiny Tim would “bless us, everyone” if he could see the cookie bake in process. But no matter.
Have a wonderful, safe, and happy holiday season, everyone.
I'm Thinking...No! 