May 08, 2024
Cookies!
Another month. Life continues on, despite everything changing on me. My biggest project remains that of self-discovery, but it would be boring to just write about the same thing over and over. Though, maybe some people would like to read that? There's almost too much to cover, though. I've done some work on writing up some little profiles for all of us alters that'll go up eventually, but I have no clue if it means anything to most people. Not that that will stop me.
Anyway what I mean is that I want to talk about just some random thing this month. Low stakes. Slice of life. So here I go: I've gotten into baking as a hobby over the last few years. I've maybe kind of stagnated on my variety, as my first couple attempts at bread didn't really rise. I should try again soon, in fact. Just got to find all my various pans. But no, while I've dabbled in muffins and some fancier strudels it really all comes down to the noble cookie. I have a wickedly powerful sweet tooth and I love to toss a few in the oven for a treat and a learning experience.
My initial recipie came from a very embarassing source: The Final Fantasy XIV Cookbook. It is not really a good set of recipies for my ass, who just bakes, but it has fun pictures and words in it and well, might as well try some of it, right? I basically did my first cookies in the form of the Coffee Biscuits recipe from that. Well, my very first cookies were in home ec class back in grade school but that doesn't count. It's basically just a normal chocolate chip cookie but you put some instant espresso in it, which is tasty as heck. And of course, I realized I could experiment from that as a base. A cookie is a simple construction, after all: you can basically do whatever as long as you have some flour and sugar and something to hold it together.
But one of the issues with the very good strategy of picking something random from a cookbook, which I think is a good one, is that you don't learn that the egg holds it together. You can intuit that if you think about it, sure, but definitely one of the things I did once I got going was ask more experienced people I knew what some of these ingredients were actually for. A recipe usually shouldn't explain all of this, because that's not the purpose of the recipe, but it's still important. I was too ignorant to even know what baking powder was doing for me until I asked. I didn't really know why there was salt in there. It matters because I want to know what happens if I change the amount, or leave it out altogether. How do I fix mistakes? One of my first dessert attempts was an apple strudel that involved some maple syrup, which at the last minute, too late to go out and get some, I found out I didn't have. I ended up tossing some honey in there which worked fine, but that's the kind of situation where it helps to know what's doing what. I just happened to guess well enough in that case.
The same principle applies to the technique, honestly, and sometimes the recipe can account for that. This is especially true with some of the more ad-libbed aspects of baking. Like I need to judge how much flour to add in the moment sometimes. Too little and the cookies will be all melty, which still has its charms but isn't what I'm going for. Too much and they're crumbly. I was mixing flour in too quickly for a while which was leading to some very sub-optimal results. And then, of course, there are things which are just purely down to preference: do you want them big or small? Soft or crunchy? Some of that is obvious and some isn't.
Anyway I eventually started using a particular brand of maple syrup as a sweetener. Other kinds work but it's one that's less thick and I find it better. I don't add any additional sugar when I do this and it results in needing a lot of extra flour so I make big soft cookies, which I like. Tossed in some dried cranberries and dark chocolate- beautiful. One time I forgot to add the egg and it still basically worked out, that's how powerful it is. I got to observe the results of letting that happen, which was good learning.
No lesson or conclusion to this one I just wanted to think about baking cookies for a bit. Remembering to take the butter out and get it soft is the annoying part really. I gotta go do that now. Then I can bake some cookies later.