Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Tales from the Toll House


Last weekend we had a situation warranting me babysitting my little niece and nephew which is, I have to say, a pleasure. We baked cookies for Barbara's class because this week is her birthday. But we thought we should have extras for around-the-house consumption.

Ergo, something like 2,000 cookies. We made batch after batch. Luckily I had gone to Wegmans beforehand and shopped the way I usually shop, in large quantities. My brother finally walked in the door and said it smelled like a commercial bakery. Ha, ha!

By that time all three of us were settled in watching "Robin Hood." Feet up, unable to move.

Barbara has picked up an expression from me. It is "Oink!"

Because I kept eating chocolate chips and M&Ms and saying "Oink."

It is fun to bake cookies! The recipe we used is from "The Joy of Cooking." I do not have to look it up. I have it memorized. I do not have a photographic memory like Pennario, it's just that when you make 100 batches of cookies ...


... you do get the recipe in your head.

Take one stick butter, cream it with a half cup white sugar and a half cup brown sugar. Add one egg and one teaspoon vanilla.

In another bowl, mix up one cup plus two tablespoons flour. Add 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon baking soda. We found amazing baking soda deep in the lazy Susan. Barbara was the heroine who found it. It was in a baking powder container with a rubber band around it and a tag my mother had rubber-banded onto it reading "Baking Soda." It made me laugh, it was evocatively Mom.

You pour the dry goods into the wet goods and then you liberally add chocolate chips. I think the recipe called for a half cup chocolate chips and a half cup walnuts. Walnuts, schmalnuts. We threw in a half cup of M&Ms. And then some.

And then some.

The cookies bake at 375 degrees.

End result, as we say here in Buffalo ...

Oink!


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