A dab of dough
A week or so before Christmas, snow drifted down onto the 10-inch white blanket that covered the trees, rooftops, and everything within my sight that had been green a few weeks prior to Old Man Winter's reminder that he would be with us for a spell.
I was at the end of my Santa's helper job, having mailed small boxes to most of our family members and Christmas cards to friends far and near. I had one more box half ready to send. I pondered on the space to fill while I watched snowflakes fall. "Ah! I'll bake a batch of cookies," my inner voice said.
For me, baking cookies is defiantly a labor of love. "But for our number one son and his wife you can do it," that little voice of encouragement said. Mothers are known for making cookies for their children. TV commercials show them lovingly making cookies with the help of a child or two, but these are cookies that come in a box, some precut and all one has to do is bake them. If in my time they had come premixed ready to bake, I would have baked lots of cookies. As it was, I rarely mixed a batch for our family of six. A pie or cake, which I enjoyed doing, seemed to go farther than a batch of cookies that could disappear as fast as they came out of the oven. I found the recipe for Filled Cookies, which are David's favorite. His Aunt Mae made them for him and the recipe I used is one of hers. I not only wished for her presence, I also wished that I could wiggle my nose for our two daughters, Jan and Jil to appear.
They had reached the wonderful age of following a recipe and to delve into what I perceived as a tedious, time consuming culinary project. The rule to clean up the kitchen when through seldom failed. Their claim to fame in our house was their pans of delicious chocolate frosted brownies.
Though I don't bake often for Hubby and I, the basic ingredients such as flour, brown sugar, oil, eggs, and spices are on hand. I cooked the date filling first as the instructions are for it to cool. Proceeding with the recipe, I mixed the dough and went ahead with the tedious part that is the root of my disinterest in making cookies. I dropped a dozen well-rounded teaspoons onto two cookie sheets. Next step; make and indentation in the center of each. Once again I pondered on what to use to do this. I found a melon ball scoop that I'd forgotten I had, tucked at the back of a drawer, which I dipped into a glass of cold water, to prevent dough from sticking to the scoop, and made a nice indentation in the center of each mound. I stirred the date filling before placing a small amount in each cookie.
The next step of the recipe; a dab of dough on top of the filling had me baffled. How much is a dab? Again I pondered. A teaspoon, half a teaspoon or a bit on the end of a teaspoon? I settle for the latter. I slipped the first batch into the hot oven to bake for 12 minutes. When they were done I slipped in the second tray. While they baked and the first tray had cooled I removed them onto a wire rack and filled it with another dozen mounds of filled dough.
The small amount of dough in the bowl for the fourth batch didn't appear to be enough to drop onto the filling. I scooped about a half inch onto the end of a teaspoon to top the filling. "That's a dab of dough," pesky inner voice smugly said. I think it added, "Dummy."
Though some were lopsided, filling had oozed out of others and they were various sizes; which is the custom of my handy work I was content with four dozen home-baked cookies. I patted myself on the back for not burning the last batch, which always happened in days past. One would have thought that the directions stated: Burn the last batch to a crisp. But then that was before ovens turned off automatically when the timer buzzed.
One would have thought a tornado had ripped through my kitchen. Both sinks were piled high with utensils. Scatterings of flour and sugar were on the counters and floor. After sweeping the floor, I filled one sink with hot soapy water, sorted what would fit in the dishwasher and watched dollar sized snowflakes fall to earth while I washed what wouldn't fit before I filled the box with a tin of David's cookies for him and Lynn's enjoyment.