Death in the Bakery

On Monday, Amos and I had some coffee chocolate chip muffins. This was our conversation:
A- "Those muffins were really good!"
J- "They tasted like coffee."

A- "I know; I ignored that part."
J- "You don't like coffee!"
A- "The chocolate chips were really good, though! I really liked that part!"

~later, at Frisbee~

~I'm eating a granola bar~

A- "Is that one of those muffins?!"
J- "No, it's a granola bar. You really liked that muffin, didn't you?"

A- "Yeah, I liked the chocolate chips. They were really good!"

So I, being the good girlfriend, decided to make Amos some chocolate chip cookies. This should not be a problem.

Oh, but it is.

See, for some strange reason, I cannot make good cookies (except for peanut butter-Nutella cookies). I can make a LOT of other stuff, but I cannot make cookies. My usual problem is that they end up being too crunchy/crispy. In the last few years, I have tried several things to try to remedy this problem. I have put a little extra liquid in the dough. I have taken the cookies out of the oven early. I have left the cookies on the pan to cool for a few minutes. I have taken the cookies off the pan quickly. I have put them in bags. I have left them on the counter. I have sprayed the pan. I have not sprayed the pan. I have put apple slices in the bag with the cookies (this turned them slightly slimy when they touched the apple). I have gotten mounds of advice (both asked for and volunteered), but nothing really helped.

But Tuesday's cookies were going to be better. They were going to taste so good, and I was going to get the thoughtful-girlfriend-and-nice-roommate award.

Well, pride goeth before a fall. Or in this case, pride goeth before a smushed, dried-up cookie.

I followed the recipe on the back of the Nestle' Tollhouse semi-sweet chocolate morsel package. (I admit, I don't always follow recipes because I like to experiment, but I really wanted these to work.) I followed the recipe and mixed it all with a rubber spatula. (I don't like getting extra stuff dirty, so I didn't use the mixer.) I followed the recipe, only adding a little extra vanilla like my family always does. I followed the recipe and did not spray the pan, I left the cookies on the pan to cool for two minutes, and then I attempted to lift the cookies off the pan.

No luck. The cookies had spread out and did not want to come off in one smooth motion, like they did in my imagination. Instead they smushed up into little ridges, or they came off in two pieces, or I managed to get two halves of two different cookies. I am rather impatient, so I didn't want to use six different motions to get one cookie off the pan, which, in my opinion, is ridiculous. I was already very tired that day, and the misbehaving cookies did not help. In frustration I started shoveling cookies off the pan, not even bothering to flip some of them right-side up. I ended up with a mountain of melty cookies on the cooling racks on the counter. I managed to get about six pretty cookies out of about thirty-six cookies total.

In between scooping cookies off the sheet, I would flop on the couch, totally irritated at my cookies and totally irritated that I was so irritated. After all, it was a cookie! A cookie! I was bigger than the cookie! I had made the cookie! I had FOLLOWED THE RECIPE. And how did this cookie repay me? By being bad and not letting me make it beautiful and delicious! Why was I letting myself get so frustrated with this?! Lame cookie. I suppose I could draw a spiritual reference here, but I won't this time. And yes, this paragraph is rather embarrassing to own up to; I promise, I really am a mature twenty-three year old adult.

Anyway, my kind boyfriend tried to console me via Facebook messages that it wasn't that bad and that he would help me at another time to figure out the problem. I really did appreciate that, but I vowed not to make cookies anytime soon. I took him a few cookies at work, and he and David were happy.

Then my roommate came home.

small michelle- "What happened to your cookies?"

She had had a bad day, so the cookies helped make it better, which was good. I told her the story as she ate a cookie and some of the leftover dough.

The next day Jen asked me about the cookies.

Jen- "What happened to your cookies?"

Jennica- "I don't want to talk about it. No, just kidding. I couldn't get them to come off the pan in one piece, so I gave up."
Jen- "It looks like a cookie cemetery!"

Thanks, Jen. Haha!

And that, my friends, is how my cookies crumbled.