If we are friends on Facebook then you know that last week I took part in a cookie swap and that things didn’t really go so well. In fact cookie swaps and I never go well together. So maybe you can learn from my experience or this will at least serve as a reminder that next year when I get invited to a cookie swap I will say, “can I just bring the wine”.
The Cooke Swap: A Cautionary Tale
In late November the invite arrives via Facebook, Cookie Swap. You instantly feel festive and nostalgic all at once. You draw up fond memories of last years cookie swap. Some how you remember it in sepia tones with the Bing Crosby singing in the background. Like childbirth your mind has erased any negative record of the event.
You head to Pinterest and browse through hundreds of cookie recipes, drooling at every click. Salted Caramel chocolate chip cookies, nutella stuffed cookies and red velvet cookies they all sound amazing. You’re not reading instructions or ingredients you are just focused on all those delicious cookies, it’s like porn for your stomach.
3 weeks later….
Glance at the calendar and see that the cookie swap is in 2 days. Realize that you are out of butter and who used all the flour and why is the brown sugar rock solid. Pull up the cookies that you committed to making and head to shop rite to gather the ingredients.
Accidentally mention to your son that you are going to make cookies. Which sets off a chain of, “can we make cookies now”, “can we make cookies now”, “can we make cookies now”.
Decide to make the damn cookies now.
Gather all your ingredients in the kitchen and read the recipe. Realize midway through that when you read this recipe 3 weeks ago it didn’t say anything about separating egg yolks or refrigerating the dough for an hour or cutting caramels into itty bitty pieces! Who has time for that?!
Meticulously chop up 30 little caramels.
Measure out ingredients and watch as your son dumps them. Pray that the ingredients end up in the bowl and not on the floor. Glance at recipe for the next ingredient, while trying to keep your eyes on your son as he stirs the dry ingredients. Thank god for your KitchenAid Mixer
Refrigerate dough and rest your hand from the endless chopping and wonder if it’s OK that you have no feeling in your thumb.
30 minutes later go to put cookies in the oven and realize that you forgot to preheat it. Put dough back in fridge and turn up the Christmas music.
Place dough on cookie sheet and let son cover with caramels. See that he is putting 4-5 pieces on each cookie and think that must be ok because you swear you saw it in the recipe.
Put cookies in oven. When timer goes off realize cookies don’t look very done and put them back in for a few minutes. Get another batch of cookies ready to go. Despite everything you’ve got this down, soon you will have a house full of cookies.
10 minutes later cookies still don’t appear done and second pan full is looking sad waiting to go in. Start to wonder what went wrong.
Pull cookie sheet out of oven, burn finger, attempt to get cookie off of pan but now caramel is running everywhere and destroying everything in it’s path.
Taste one of the cookies and realize something is off. Then it hits you apparently baking soda is a vital ingredient that you forgot.
Throw 2 hours worth of work away. Curse and mutter under your breath. Desperately try to scrape caramel off the cookie sheets. Google how to get caramel off a cookie sheet and realize that even mighty Google doesn’t have an answer to this problem.
Trash cookie sheets. Debate crying over crappy cookies. Turn off Christmas music, thinking this calls for something harder like Taylor Swift.
Blast Shake it Off. Text message neighbor to borrow cookie sheets, start another batch of dough and place baking soda next to the mixer so you don’t forget. Put on Disney Jr for the preschooler and power through two batches of cookies in record time.
Refrigerate dough and pick up cookie sheets from neighbors. The end is insight.
5 hours after starting you pull the last batch of cookies out of the oven. It is now well past dinner time and there is nothing to eat other than cookies. Make your son a PB&J and pour yourself a glass of wine. Realize that the idea of eating a single cookie makes you a bit nauseous but you eat them anyway.
Do you do a cookie swap? What is your go to cookie recipe? Clearly I won’t be going to this recipe ever again even though they came out really good.
Haha!! So funny thanks for keeping it real…RIP cookie sheets! Tip: Parchment paper…always! As a lover of food, I hots cookie swaps (even my daughter hosts them and she's 10) My mother-in-law, who only cooks via microwave or by dialing the phone for take out was kicked out of her first cookie swap a few years ago…she bought chocolate dipped Oreos and plated them…really?? Lol!
haha. love this! literally, right before reading this post, i backed out of my cookie swap later this week because i realized it meant slaving over a hot stove Thursday night with no game plan in sight — not even a hint of a recipe. i would surely have ended up in a similar situation. thank you for confirming it was the best decision i have made so far this holiday season! 🙂
LOL! well… cookies and wine sound good to me!
hahaha! My cookie swap was yesterday and all went well 🙂 I will invite you next year and you can bring the wine.
So funny! I have a love hate relationship with cookie swaps 🙂
I feel for you! One year I did gingerbread cookies. When my husband woke up in the morning he said it looked like a gingerbread army had invaded our apartment. That's what it felt like.