baking by picture

{This post first appeared as a guest spot over at Real Housekeeping Magazine}

I love dessert (who doesn’t?!).  So when we were invited to dinner at a friend’s house I offered to bring dessert, especially since I had seen this recipe for “heirloom” Oatmeal-Ginger Cream Pies in the latest issue of Country Living magazine. Now, I didn’t exactly set myself up for success. I waited until that afternoon to start… and then I got called into work.  But if I’m anything, it’s Mistress of Crunch Time, so—on to the baking!

In order for a recipe to become “heirloom,” according to the authors, it must:

• Be delicious,
• Be (relatively) simple to make,
• Have ingredients that are readily available to everyone.

Delicious? The picture looked pretty good. Ingredients? Looks like I have everything… Simple? Turns out that was relative…

The hopeful end result. Yeah. Right.

I should have realized I was in over my head when the first step of the recipe was to toast the oats. Riiiiight. Instead, I laughed and called my sister.  You’ve gotta share the fun when a recipe asks for more effort than you’d put forth to eat it…

Oats to toast.

Meanwhile, I’m supposed to be stirring everything else together, but I’m also supposed to go back to the oven and shake the pan with the oats, or turn it around a few times, or something like that.  You’re lucky these oats aren’t getting burned, buckos. There’s no way I’m shaking them around while stirring everything else. Nope.

Meanwhile, stirring…

This next part of the recipe was the best, and illustrates why you should read the whole recipe before starting out. You’d think you could just “drop by rounded teaspoonful” in the every-other-cookie-type-recipe-in-the-world manner…but no:

…roll dough, two tablespoons at a time, into balls, or use a #30 (1-ounce) ice cream scoop; for each sheet, drop 12 balls, 2 inches apart. With dampened hands, flatten each ball to a 1/2-inch thickness..

Umm…not gonna happen.  Didn’t I mention that I was throwing these together in the 12 minutes I had left before having to wake the sleeping baby up and throw everything in the car to go to work?So, I ended up winging it, as usual, and just made some blobs on the pans.

But look…she used parchment papers!  Pro.  For sure.

Now, on to the cream filling! Luckily, I had some candied ginger (“readily available ingredients”—ha!) in the cupboard from the last time I thought about trying a ridiculous recipe but stopped at the smartest point: Never starting.

Chop chop with the Cutco.

And…stir it up!

This looks kind of gross. It’s cream cheese, confectioner’s sugar and the candied ginger bits.

Into the oven.  When I pulled the cookies out, I didn’t really look at them, except to think, “Those don’t really look the same, now do they?” I came home to these:

Pretty dang flat.

But, if life gives you flat cookies, and you’re bringing dessert to the party…what do ya do? Add more sugar and get going!

Finished product. Nailed it.

They looked nothing like the picture, but everyone said they tasted great. Never forget the cardinal rule of baking: add more butter, more sugar, or both, and you win! Happy baking!