With Christmas just around the corner, this boy loves getting into the Christmas spirit, even if it wasn’t even Advent yet. So all caught up in the pre-festive spirit and bitten by the do-it-yourself bug, this boy decided to try something new. After long hours of pondering and strainous thinking (ok ok not that much of pondering, maybe just a couple of minutes), baking cookies it was!
So the first order was to decide if there was the most important equipment in place, an Oven. So the Internet was scoured and questions to friends and colleagues asked, and in the end an OTG was secured and delivered and demonstrated and the boy was was all raring to bake.
The next step was finding an easy to follow recipe, cause this boy is no cook. But the boy was willing and eager to learn. So once again the Internet was searched and countless pages visited and YouTube videos viewed, till this boy came to a recipe he was confident and comfortable he could follow.
The enthusiasm was burning bright and the josh was high. It was time to put together the core ingredients. So the ingredients and other equipment’s were sourced. But not before a detour of his bike being towed (ok Activa) for being parked in the wrong spot. But not even this setback could throw a monkey wrench (or a monkey, or a spanner) in his enthusiasm. So trying to put aside the exertion of the morning (after all the weekend long run followed by a gym workout can be tiring), and sourcing the ingredients and trekking to the RTO to pay the fine, can take its toll, even on the best. But in the end it was time to bake.
Putting all the things in order (and in the process driving his mother nuts) he began to prepare his dough. The unsalted butter didn’t melt causing him to fret a little cause he couldn’t beat it with the sugar to a light fluff (as mentioned in the recipe). So in his haste he added the milk and vanilla essence and began to hope against hope that the required consistency would be reached. So he furiously continued to beat it.
All this while he tried to keep his mum at bay, but now he needed her. He got her to put together the dry ingredients, giving her instructions on what he needed to be done (a head chef moment, though I am not sure if that applies to the boy). So once done it was time to prepare the dough. The wet mixture was added to the dry one, little by little. This mixture was stirred with a spatula and then by hand till it was made in dough. The boy got a bit panicky as it was no where close to what he had observed in the videos he had seen.
Now that the dough was ready it was time for it to rest, and with it it was time for him to rest too. So the dough was wrapped in cling wrap and placed in the fridge to rest. After letting it rest for an hour (or almost an hour) it was time to remove it from the fridge and preheat the oven.
Following the steps shown during the demo, the boy ser the temperature and timer for the oven, and proceeded to to roll out the cookie and cut the cookies out of it with a cookie cutter. As the dough was still soft and the boy wasn’t an expert at rolling anything, not even rolling his eyes, dough stuck to the rolling pin no matter how much flour he added. But somehow he tried his best to do his best and cut out the cookies, to varying degrees of success.
With the oven heated and the first batch ready to go, the tray was put in the oven. He stood there staring at cookies baking, wondering if they would get brown. His mum joined him in the staring competition with the oven, trying to get the whiff of the dough baking.
As the buzz going off the first batch was ready. He removed it from the oven, with a sense of pride as this was the first thing he ever managed to bake. But then this feeling was short lived as the first batch slightly soft and crumbly. He tasted it, and though it tasted nice it had a bitter after taste.
Not to be disheartened by the first attempt, he went about preparing the second batch, and there lay the second mistake. Varying the time and temperature he hoped this batch would bake well. Alas this batch got a bit burnt.
With every batch he struggled a bit , with every batch he got more weary has it the cookies weren’t baking the way he wanted them to, the way they should.
When the final batch was done he breathed a sigh of relief, as it was late and he tired and fatigued. He tried to figure out what he did wrong and worried if he would ever try baking again. But then he knew he could never give up and never give up. He would learn from his adventure and try avoiding the mistakes he had made. But he would bake again, he could now that he had an oven there was no backing down, giving up, whether it was an adventure or a misadventure.
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