Saturday, August 14, 2010

Pioneer Woman I am not.

Ah, Saturday, blissful Saturday. My husband went to go see some ridiculous dude movie with the guys, and little Jack and I had the house to ourselves for the afternoon.

Of course I decided to spend the afternoon relaxing, watching the House marathon on USA Network, and sipping wine. Wait, no I didn't. I decided to clean and bake while Jack napped. Cleaning was fine, but baking? Not so much.

I thought I would try this fabulous recipe for something called Zand Gebak that I saw earlier this week on The Pioneer Woman's website. I've been dreaming of lovely shortbread cookies topped with rich mocha all week, and today was my day to make my own.

No, it wasn't.

The recipe started out fine. Well, I didn't have quite enough butter but that's okay - I was close. I brewed some strong coffee, per the recipe. I creamed the butter and sugar together, added the vanilla, salt and baking powder, and reached for the flour.

Except that it wasn't flour. It was sugar. The Target brand flour and sugar foiled me again. The packaging for their flour and their sugar look EXACTLY alike to me (except for the fact that one says "sugar" and one says "flour," but who looks at those little details?). I had two bags of sugar and zero bags of flour. And with a sleeping baby, there was no way I could make a quick trip to the store. But not to worry, I have other flour. Wheat flour. That will work, won't it?

Here's an important lesson:

WHEAT FLOUR IS NOT THE SAME AS FLOUR. IT IS AN ABOMINATION. I THINK IT CONTAINS SAND. AND ANGER.

Nevertheless, I sallied forth. I kneaded the dough with the wheat flour, trying not to get too skeeved out by the texture (have I mentioned that I hate wheat flour? I hate wheat flour.  It feels like sand) and I rolled it flat so I could grab my trust roundy cookie cutter and cut some circular cookies.

Except that I don't have a round cookie cutter. I have about sixty gajillion Christmas cookie cutters, and a turkey. I settled for a Christmas star since it was far less Christmasy than, say, Santa.  I could at least pretend that I meant to make star-shaped cookies.  I cut out two dozen stars and put them on the cookie sheet and let them bake for ten minutes while I worked on the mocha butter. Which I didn't have enough butter for, but at this point, we were sallying forth, right? No looking back even if my kitchen catches fire. The mocha butter looked mostly like the photo, so I was pleased, and turned my attention back to the star-shaped cookies in the oven.

And...they had baked into one giant cookie. Helldamnfart.

But I was undaunted. I washed up the cookie cutter and cut the warm-but-not-crisp mass of cookie into star shapes. Crumbly, crappy-looking, broken up star shapes. Well, the look isn't as important as the taste, right?  And with the mocha butter on top, surely they will taste fabulous. 

I spooned just the right amount of mocha butter onto each cookie and watched it run off the sides of the cookie and then immediately soak into the cookie, thereby further rendering the cookie into a mushy pile with both the look and texture of sand.  I could have built a damn castle with it.

Next, I did what any sane person would do (finally). I tossed it all in the trash, poured the remaining coffee into a mug, added a dash of Southern Comfort, and got right to that House marathon on USA Network, and devoured half of the bag of chocolate chips that should have gone into the cookies.

But not without one parting thought to this recipe:



Ahh.  I feel better.

mbj

7 comments:

Johanna said...

It's probably a good thing this happened. If you are anything at all like me, had they turned out, you would have eaten the entire batch and then ended up getting very sick. This experience saved you from a tumultuous night of tummy problems!

I do love the ending, however!!!!!

Liza | @aMusingFoodie said...

LOL! "I think it contains sand. And anger." OMG - I literally laughed out loud reading that.

Sorry your cookies didn't work out! Wheat flour is a touchy thing...I like to use it in pancakes (kind of makes a faux buckwheat), but that's about it.

Liza
http://www.amusingfoodie.com

Uncle Grumpy White Devil said...

"Sand, and anger..." LOL! And , the finishing photo - priceless!

Sorry about the cookies not turning out! I'd have liked to try them!

The "dude movie" rocked - gratuitous gore, insane CGI sequences, stoboscopic editing of fight sequences, lots of neat stuff.

Oh, and our action heroes are aging about as well as we are -that is to say, NOT!

Should have said something - I have a can of flour that comes out twice a year for gravy. About 4lbs!

Sandra said...

"helldamnfart"...can I please borrow that? So much more original than my usual "Oh for f$#% sakes!" And I'm can't believe you don't like whole wheat flour. How can someone not enjoy that crunchy texture? What's not to love when you're picking brown shit out of your teeth after you eat something containing it.

Anonymous said...

Hehe I love your baking stories. :) Just blame it all on your oven. Its always the ovens fault..especially if its a gas one. - Abi -

mommylicious said...

It happened to me a few months ago when I made pancake. I grabbed powdered sugar instead of flour. I dumped the whole batch and start from scratch. It's a good thing making pancake is not as complicated as your recipe, I probably would've done the same.

akalutts said...

OMG hilarious! And your label "Cooking sucks." Priceless. Just what I needed tonight ;)