...for baking blunders to abound! After spending a wonderful Thanksgiving at home, I returned to Burlington on Sunday evening with the fervor of a holiday baker buzzing through me. My executive director's birthday was the following day, and my original plan to make a cake fell apart as my hours dwindled. No problem, cupcakes would suffice. Vanilla buttermilk cupcakes with an eggnog filling and some sort of complimentary frosting. Perfect. I expected them to look a little like this:
Well, after discovering that I did not havethe correct ingredients, I decided against the delicious cupcakes and opted for cookies instead. My office would understand...it is the day after the Thanksgiving holiday, afterall! So, still on my eggnog kick (inspired by Dad who bought some over the weekend, thanks Daddy), I went with eggnog thumbprint cookies. Something like this, or so I hoped:
I found a recipe and went for it. Let the blunders begin...or continue, really. First, all my butter was frozen, like usual. So I took out the stick and a half I needed for the cookie dough and defrosted it. Kind of. After repeatedly hitting the defrost button, I apparently hit it one too many times and out came completely melted butter. Oh well, the dough had to be refrigerated anyway, so I thought it shouldn't mess up the cookies too much. (Famous last words). I mixed up the batter, it tasted delicious, and I popped it in the fridge. I then needed to defrost the other half stick of butter used for the filling, so I put it on a plate and popped it in the gas oven as that is many degrees warmer than my apartment.
After a while, I grew impatient waiting for the dough to be "easy to handle" and figured that I'd go ahead and take it out and form the cookies. That's when I turned the oven on to preheat and merrily went about my way scooping out what I later realized was completely uneasy to handle cookie dough. With the cookies finally on their sheets, I opened the oven door only to find (and anyone who is paying attention has probably guessed at this point), half a stick of melted butter all over the plate and its wrapper, bubbling away. Usk. I moved that out of the oven, slid the cookies in, and decided to attempt making the filling while the cookies baked. 10 minutes later, I opened my oven to reveal the flattest, thinnest, all cooked-together cookies that I've made in a while. Voila:
So, I frosted them instead of filled them and sprinkled a little nutmeg on. Turns out, they tasted great, just absolutely nothing like I expected! They acted naughty, but turned out nice!
