Accept All Cookies (#87)

It’s dangerous to go alone - take a cookie.

Shortbread cookies using my grandmother’s recipe. Scroll to the bottom for the recipe! (Photo: Bryn Robinson, 2021)

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Have you heard the saying that cooking is an “art”, but baking is a “science”?

The saying comes from the belief that baking holds court over kitchen chemistry; that, while “…all cooking is scientific in nature, but with baking there is a very specific scientific interplay between ingredients¹.”

And, sure, knowing what is happening with the sugars, fats, flours, and leavening agents will make your results far more reliable: that the sugars don’t just sweeten the deal, but melt in the oven’s heat to mix with baking soda and powder and create gases that puff and rise - an unfinished number of miniature volcano experiments. That the butters or shortenings or lards melt, too, and release the air tucked away inside from the time you beat them with a mixer or a wooden spoon. More puffing, more rising. The proteins - like flour’s gluten and egg’s albumin - take their time to lazily stretch and react in the heat, before setting into their final shapes.²

You don’t necessarily need to know these things if you follow recipes well. But, if you do, you have a chemistry set at hand, in which you can vary the knowledge to adjust to personal preferences, e.g., the chewiness, the caramelization.

I’m not a great alchemist in this sense, but having this knowledge keeps me from uninformed improvisation. I also think that the saying is a bit rubbish. Try cooking a curry and thinking you can fling in spices whenever the mood strikes you (and not in layers, by first toasting their fats to release the essential oils, and then at the end, to punch it up). Or try ignoring a blank cake or sugar cookie, and not seeing the artistic opportunity in front of you, to be explored with sprinkles and frostings.

Maybe, in the new year, I’ll play more in my home chemistry lab.

But this time of year? There’s less room for experiments.

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One anchor to memories of holidays past, and their spirit, is the food. There’s a grounding in the comfort of past delights and in the expectation of a familiar ritual or script. I’ve talked about this last year (almost to the day - clearly, this is the time of year for my Christmas baking):

And whether they are religious, spiritual, or completely secular, many of our gatherings are usually linked in some fashion to food. Visiting a funeral home for a few days this past weekend, gifts of homemade treats emerged from the ether, to accompany coffee and tea. They were more than vehicles to keep blood sugar at acceptable levels when one might forget to eat at all. They nourish our souls.

They grounded us.

One night after visitation, I began my own Christmas chemistry with homemade “Bits and Bites”. (I’ve tried starting earlier in the season, so I can gift (and keep) food before other treats make their way down the chimney into the home). They’re easy to whip up - a savory snack mix of cereals, pretzels and crackers, covered in a butter steeped in onion, garlic, and Worcestershire sauce, then slow roasted for a couple hours. Other than popping up to stir, you don’t have much to do. Some add nuts to it; I don’t, and substitute instead a cheese cracker. (Goldfish crackers work, although, if we still had a Marks and Spencers here, I’d be putting those little cheese crackers shaped like hearts, clubs, diamonds, and spades.)

Speaking of playing card symbols, that’s the only staple cookie in my repertoire: my nan’s shortbreads. Dotted with frosting and a candied cherry. I’ll bring in other players off the bench - a chocolate cookie stuffed with Rolos, a gingerbread dipped and decorated. This year I’m trying a new one, a deeply coffee-flavoured one, shaped like a coffee bean. I mixed the doughs and popped them in the freezer for baking later this weekend, to then assemble into selection boxes.

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It can be hard to incorporate new traditions as life changes. I look back at the post above and recollect great memories from those Christmas Eve soirées. Indeed, so much emotion is tied to those earlier memories, that we can forget to adapt to the new ones we’re now creating. To sit in a bit of discomfort and expand our experiences. Although it doesn’t always align with our comfort, change is the only constant in a world fuelled by entropy - the progression towards further and further chaos.

And to fuel our journey, it helps to have a familiar cookie at hand.

Screenshot from the original Legend of Zelda game, in which Link visits an unnamed old man in a cave for a sword. In this version of the meme, though, Link gets a cookie to guide him on his journey. (Generated by Bryn Robinson on ImgFlip, 2023.)

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Poppins’ Shortbread Cookies

Cream together 1 cup of butter and 1/2 icing sugar. Add 2 cups of all-purpose flour and mix. (The dough should look and feel like modelling clay when mixed.)

Roll out to 1/4” and cut into desired shapes. Place on baking sheet and pierce each cookie several times with a fork. Bake at 325°F for 8-10 minutes. Let cool, then decorate with dollop of icing and a piece of candied cherry.

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1. The Chef and the Dish. (n.d.) The Differences between Cooking and Baking.

2. Redpath Sugar. (n.d.) The Science of Cookies.