Ugly Cookies

My name is Alison and I love fruits and vegetables



carbs



and especially chocolate.

I'm a dark chocolate kind of girl, so you can guess which is mine. I bought some Dove promises because I had a coupon and because Caroline loves them. What kind of mother denies her child chocolate? A good one, probably. But, that's not really the point, any way.

And the M&Ms? Well, they were actually purchased for a reason other than simple recreational snacking.


We made cookies!

I dug Ebony, my beloved Kitchen Aid mixer, out from her summertime hibernation spot this afternoon. I dusted her off, profusely apologized for neglecting her these past few months and then made some cookie dough.

It all started out pretty smoothly. Well, except for the part where Caroline, who was on egg duty, cracked the egg into a little bowl and then proceeded to dump the egg all over the counter.
I can always count on her to mix things up a little.

The dough came together in a flash, thanks to some very soft, room temperature butter.



Before I go any further, let me just take a minute to remind every one that in the past I've made some very good looking cookies. I have a reputation to uphold and I think it would be prudent of me to remind you of my previous cookie successes.

Double chocolate chunk

Snickerdoodles

Gingerbread biscotti



White chocolate and cranberry

Now, back to reality..

The cookies spread like crazy in the oven; I think the dough was too soft. Probably because the butter was so soft. I also like to chill the dough before baking; however I had some eager little people waiting not very patiently to eat a cookie fresh from the oven. Chilling the dough was clearly not an option.

A few of them turned out okay,

but I had to perform surgery on quite a few to release them from their Siamese cookie twins.




Ugh, jagged, flat edges. Not pretty.

This might be completely unrelated, but as I was separating all the conjoined cookies, my eye started twitching uncontrollably. I couldn't help but think that this was my inner neurotic, neat freak reacting subliminally to the horror of my ugly cookies.

At least the bottom looks attractive. And as you know, having an attractive bottom is highly desirous.

The good news is that if you stack the cookies up in a certain way, all you can see are the pretty, round, G-B-D (that's Alton Brown speak for golden brown and delicious) edges.

Well, except for this guy who somehow ended up with square edges.

He didn't make the cut; so I ate him. The chef always gets first dibs on the edges, broken pieces and ugly cookies; it's the first law of baking. However, 2/3 of this batch qualified as ugly and you'll be happy to know that I refrained from eating all of the rejects. Otherwise I'd wind up with a hefty stomachache and two dozen reasons to fuel one epic self-loathing pity party.


Maybe it's all about camera angles, because these cookies actually look okay.

I guess the camera can lie.

And look at this one, with the bright blue eyes; she looks happy, if not a little cross-eyed.

I guess she understands that you can't judge a cookie by it's shape. All cookies, even the ugly ones with jagged, flat edges and sunken middles, are worthy of love.

I confess, I'm a sucker for a cookie metaphor.

In the words of the wise Jerry Seinfeld, "look to the cookie."