remedy with baking

I think I finally understand the meaning of “cabin fever.”  And “perspective.”  It did not occur to me exactly how much snow I was suffocating in before I went out and tried to shovel it yesterday.  It also didn’t occur to me how much pain I was going to be in the next morning…

 
There’s only so much I can do to entertain myself indoors.  But you know, I relish the feeling of being bored nowadays.  Nothing feels better than wondering what the heck I want to do.  Besides, if this is cutting into my summer break, then hell yes I’m going to enjoy myself!  Watch TV?  Blog?  Play video games?  Bake?—that became my favorite way to waste time.  I’ve baked twice this week already, which is more than I have in my entire, albeit short, life.  There’s something magical about squatting down in front of a bright oven with hot air gushing out of the vent, watching piles of goop miraculously puff into glorious, richly-spiced muffins, or stiff balls of chocolate-studded dough expand into half-spheres of heaven.  (Feel free to be liberal with your interpretation of that :P)

 
Okay, well, that last part made the kitchen smell like smokin’ hot oil.  Hot.  I didn’t happen to have proper cookie baking sheets on hand, and I wasn’t about to ask for a trip to the grocery store, so I had to be resourceful.  Friends, aluminum foil + PAM can answer all of your oven woes.  Even if you’re using the grill spray for cookies.

My first batch of cookies (EVER) came out a wee bit burnt.  Just a smidgen, see?

 
If only those were raisins at the bottom.

Luckily, I still had a few balls of dough left over and ready to be baked!  And this time, I actually followed the recipe and baked for 15 instead of 24 minutes, so they came out the way I assume they were supposed to.  Cookies are supposed to be soft when they come out of the oven, Candice.  Lesson learned: cooling = firm cookies, extra baking = burnt cookie butts. 

     

I can’t follow a recipe without adding my personal touches along the way.  This was no exception, even though it was my first batch of cookies ever.  I tried to follow the recipe for chocolate cherry granola cookies from bella eats, but a combination of my hate-to-waste mentality and weird imagination made it physically impossible to follow the it to the letter.  Though, I think I’ll just stick to twisting the ingredients around next time.  :P

I was surprised by how much my family loved these cookies.  If it helps, I baked them yesterday, and they are all gone now.  o__o

 
Just as the title of this post implies, these are on the crunchy side, with gooey chocolate chunks, nuttiness from whole wheat flour and oat bran, and a distinct grittiness from the instant grits I threw in there.  They’re the little white specks—you can see them if you look closely.  Not only did they add grit, but they also contributed a nice cornbread-y flavor.  It’s unconventional, but it’s pretty good, if I must say.  :] 

I’m not gonna lie—I was seriously doubtful about how these would turn out when I took the cookie dough out of the fridge after a nearly-24-hour winter vacation.  It was hard, smelled sort of like Play-Doh, and seemed like it would become burnt little cookie dough balls in the oven.  And whaddya know—the burning was MY mistake, and the cookies were gone within a day.  More culinary trash –> worthy of critics’ cash action?  Mmhmm…

Recipe is here if you’re interested.  I was going to sprinkle a little coarse sea salt over these to make them extra delicious, but lo and behold, I ran out.  Bought a huge bag for $1.99 at the Korean supermarket today… nice.

Q1: What was the first thing you ever baked?
Q2: How many days does it take for you to get “cabin fever”?

Off to bed now.  Sweet dreams!

ox ~ c a n d i c e

Advertisement