Christmas Crinkles

For everyone who knows me they can more than sufficiently appreciate and attest to the fact that food is ABSOLUTELY important in my life. I just can't get enough (sing along with me please)! If there was a way that I could eat ALWAYS and not suffer the negative consequences, I would be all over it! I imagine lot's of people would agree. For as far back as I can remember I have always wanted to learn how to cook and bake. I, honestly was the only factor stopping myself from learning due to this recurring illness which has sadly plagued me since my youth, and has on many occasions given my family reasons to doubt if I would ever completely recover, LAZINESS... *sheepishly smiles* Forgive me sometimes I have a flair for the dramatic...:)


How I got my groove (back...haha) was through trying to find a way to make a little extra money on the side. I thought I would teach myself how to bake (since I've always wanted to learn) and once I had a certain number of recipes in my arsenal then I would sell them. So in essence I would have a little bakery business going! I thought it was ingenious, and I was so excited I made plans, googled recipes, asked people who already knew how to bake for advice and searched for cute ways to package goods and I even came up with a name I thought was the cutest thing since sliced bread assuming my french was correct "Ma Petite Patisserie". All this enthusiasm was immediately curtailed by my mother asking me "Who's gas I was planning to use?" after a short discussion (to be absolutely diplomatic)and much huffing and puffing and rolling of the eyes on my part, MISSION ABORTED.


After a couple weeks I still really wanted to learn how to bake, and when I went to Pastry Passions in Sovereign Centre, and I saw a slice of cheesecake for I believe it was almost $450 I almost died. The $1000 hat was going to spend to buy my brother and I some cheesecake I could buy ingredients and make a mini cheesecake or cheesecake cupcakes. So I thought I should just do this. The beauty of compromise is that you work together, which I would have realised earlier if I wasn't being a little brat. So I would still learn how to bake I'd just use the oven at the same time my mother uses it so as to cut down on costs and preserve resources. YAY!!! (dances around a little...ok maybe a lot..)


 So after such a LENGTHY introduction on to the reason for my blog, Christmas Crinkles!! As much as I would love to take credit for this recipe, I got it from this page 

 http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/chocolate_crinkles/

 Since this whole journey is very much an experimental, try and see how it works type of thing here's my format:

 Title:      Cookies

 Aim:       To successfully bake deeeeeeee-licious cookies

 Apparatus: 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
                 1 1/2 cups white sugar
                 1/2 cup vegetable oil
                 4 eggs
                 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
                 2 cups all-purpose flour
                 2 teaspoons baking powder
                1/2 teaspoon salt
                1 cup confectioners’ sugar
                Wooden spoon
                Measuring cups
                Measuring spoons
                Two mixing bowls
                Approx. 3 cookie sheets
                Approx. 1 tsp. of butter
                Saran wrap
                A working oven (for sure!!)

 Method:

1. In one bowl beat together the cocoa powder, white sugar, and vegetable oil until it comes together in a sort of dough. 
2.  Add the eggs one at a time (mixing for 30 seconds each). Then add the vanilla and mix thoroughly. 
3.  In the other bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt. Then mix into the chocolate doughy- like mixture until just combined. Do not overbeat. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and chill overnight or for four hours. 
4. Preheat the oven to 350°F, and grease the cookie sheets with butter (unless they are non-stick). 
5. Put the confectioners sugar in a bowl. Using a teaspoon get clumps of chilled dough and roll into a ball using your hands. Cover the ball in confectioner's sugar and then place on cookie sheet. 
6. Bake for ten to twelve minutes 

Results: [See picture above]

Discussion: Now if you went to the webpage above then you would see what that "experts" cookies looked like. Mine looked nothing like that! Why?! Well I used a tablespoon instead of a teaspoon to get little clumps of doughy goodness, so naturally because my clumps were bigger my cookies were bigger. The next problem I encountered was the dough, it was a lot less dough-like that I thought it would be, it was very wet like and I think perhaps I was to put more flour in it I am not sure yet google hasn't been helping very much. But I left a comment of the site to see if the owner can help me out so we shall see. When you are rolling in confectioner's sugar make sure the cookies are completely covered. So that when they bake you get that nice cracked look kinda. I didn't put enough sugar and so when they were done baking I went a little crazy with sprinkling it on lol. Also, the cookies were much more cake-like that I expected them to be. I have never had these cookies before so I had no idea what they would taste like. So perhaps they should be cake-like, I don't know, but they were extremely yummy and chewy and delightful. My father and brother could not keep their hands out of the cookie jar. Literally! I did have quite a bit as well and everyone said they loved it. So despite the weird non-dough-likeness, and the cakeyness. It was a success!!

Conclusion: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. deeeeeee-licious cookies were baked and everyone loved them!!


 Yours,

 Hapyness... :-)