cookies, distributed

The cookies have been distributed. Some joy has been shared. I doled out two types of cookies to the people I saw: at the downstairs grocery, there were two people, so I gave those cookies out immediately. I asked one lady at the grocery how many staffers there were in total, and she said there were about fifteen. I grimaced and told her I could afford to hand out ten pairs of cookies (one ketoish, one standard American Toll House), so in theory, if some staffers get only one cookie, then fifteen people can receive cookies. I hope those people are happy with whichever cookie they end up with, be it almond flour or Toll House.

almond cookies, stored for the night before placement into plastic sleeves

This morning, I ended up having to bake another batch of Toll House cookies (remember the previous batch?): like an idiot, I had forgotten to add the damn butter last night. The wages of senility. I had warmed/melted the butter in the microwave, then I had combined all the other ingredients to make the cookie dough, and I had somehow forgotten to take the butter out of the microwave to add in. The lack of butter affected the cookies' texture and taste: the cookies, once baked, tasted familiar yet bland, and I recall thinking that the cookie dough, when I'd put it together, looked too sturdy—too much like the almond-flour dough that I've made over and over lately. Later last night, while I was stewing about the cookies' strange taste and texture, something prompted me to open the microwave, and voilà—there in the 'wave was the goddamn butter that I'd forgotten. Fuck. My mind raced through alternative scenarios, and I almost settled on blitzing the baked, butterless cookies up, then adding those crumbs and chunks into a second batch of cookies. The result would have been way more cookies: a superbatch. But in the end, I simply made a second batch of cookies and was extra careful, this time, to include the butter. And this time around, with the butter in place and nothing else forgotten, I had enough dough to make thirty regular Toll House cookies. Softened butter makes all the difference in the dough's texture, and as you see below, I must've been generous with how much butter I'd used: the cookies obviously spread a lot during baking, which was fine by me. My perfect cookie is flat, crunchy around the outside, and soft/gooey at the center. I have no regrets about the recipe or the baking method.

Enough dough, I wrote above. Ah, the perils of pronouncing -ough. 

Farmer Brown's plough churned through the field while he coughed and hawked out a massive loogie. His breath soughed in and out, and his thoughts drifted to last year's drought, which had crimped his budget, meaning he hadn't had the dough to pay all of his bills. This year was going to be rough, too.

my buttery Toll House cookies, not ensleeved yet

The new batch looked distinctly different from the butterless batch (which I still have but will never give out to anyone else). And depending on how many cookies were in any given tray, the cookies came out either a bit lighter or a bit darker in color. Personally, I loved the taste and texture after the cookies had had a chance to cool down a bit.

almond cookies, ensleeved and labeled "almond"

sleeves for the regular Toll House cookies, label "regular" (ilban)

The two ladies at the grocery store seemed happy, and after I had dumped ten pairs of cookies onto the skeleton crew, I went up to the lobby and gave the security guard/concierge enough cookies for him and his staff of four people. More smiles. The concierge was there when I had come by with cake at Christmas.

It'll be a long wait until Chuseok, when I might spread some more culinary happiness again, but there's a good chance I'll have moved by then, assuming I go back to regular work.