Baking School

When I was younger I wanted to be a teacher. I wanted to have fun with kids, and hopefully have them learn something too. Though that aspiration faded as my education continued, I still enjoy teaching people new things, as long as there is fun involved.

This fall, I took on the task of teaching my friends how to bake. Whenever you put me and my crazy friends in the kitchen there is sure to be a good time, but we can never guarantee a good outcome. So far, we have made delicious desserts including: monkey bread, peanut butter cookies, and of course, chocolate chip cookies. We've also dabbled in bread baking and even full out meals.

I always knew that when the recipe said "recipe yields 24 cookies," I could expect to get 12 cookies out of it. It's what I learned going up in the kitchen, go big or go home. BUT, somehow, when baking with my friends, the same recipe that would give me 12 cookies somehow only gives me 6. And for some reason my friends are always exhausted when the dessert is finished and say they're too full to eat any. Maybe there's a reason I like to choose recipes that don't have eggs in them...

This past week my friends and I entered the experimental stage. They quickly picked up on the basics, and though their were a few disagreements, ("Theresa do we really have to add flour to this cookies recipe?")on the whole, we have made great progress. Well, the first experiment was a big one. Waffle Cookies!!
We came to the conclusion that waffles and cookies were very similar. They contain many of the same ingredients, and they're both heated for a short amount of time. Apparently, we didn't think it through enough, but we tried anyways. The outcome was a pretty hard chocolate waffle.
I think I'll stick with breakfast food in my waffle iron, but who can pass down a cookie in the shape of Winnie the Pooh, even if it served a better purpose as a frisbee than a cookie.

The lesson learned? Even if you produce crappy food, the laughter and the friendly shenanigans makes it totally worth it.