Tales of the (rusty) iron chef

I want to preface this post by saying that I am an excellent cook. I have inherited my Grandmother's uncanny ability to be able to bung some left-overs into a fry pan, sprinkle it all with paprika and assorted herbs and spices, and end up with a culinary extravaganza at short notice. I can scramble eggs at ten paces and cook perfectly fluffy rice simply using the power of my mind. I can prepare a scrumptious steak, medium-rare, and serve it with a garden salad and home-made dressing with one hand behind my back. I generally don't need to measure; I can add a splash of a liquid ingredient and know how many cups it is just by estimating. I know how much salt is needed intuitively, without tasting. Suffice it to say that I am fucking awesome in the kitchen. I just want that to be known and understood by all.

That said, I shall continue with my missive.

It would appear however, in light of recent events, that this inherited, natural flair for cooking is firmly rooted in the savoury arena and does not venture too far into the sweet arena. As soon as sugar becomes involved in a recipe, everything begins to go pear-shaped quite quickly. Generally this doesn't phase me too much; I much prefer savoury food to sweet foods anyway. The exception to this rule is that I love my cookies, especially home-made cookies. Apart from being considerably cheaper when home-made, the ones I make are also conveniently dairy-free (and thus promote a diarear-free state of being for my poor digestive system). I even have a recipe from Dad's Grandma for a biscuit recipe she invented, called Hokey-Pokies, which is a kind of golden syrup shortbread (in a very round-about way). I've tried several times to make these biscuits since getting my hands on the coveted family recipe and have failed miserably each and every time. The funny thing is that each time I failed, I fucked it up in a new and interesting way which I probably couldn't replicate if I tried.

But this story is not about Hokey-Pokies. It's about my favourite type of cookie of all time, Cornflake cookies, and how I so utterly fucked up the simple task of baking a simple batch of my favourite cookies on Friday.

In hindsight I can see that it was doomed from the start when I didn't check if I had all the ingredients before starting. I put 250g of butter into the bowl (I even measured it) and then got the canister of caster sugar to add a cup to the butter. Here was the first problem: only 1/3 cup of caster sugar in the container. "Not a problem", I thought, "I can just use normal sugar. It'll be a bit crunchy but still totally edible." So in went the table sugar and I creamed it all together. Next I sifted the flour over the creamed butter. I glanced at the recipe and realised, my heart sinking, that I should have added the 2 eggs and vanilla essence before I added the flour. Second problem. "Oh well, not much I can do now." So I added the eggs and vanilla and then went in search of baking powder.

Baking powder is one of those rare substances that exists in any given pantry either in excess or not at all; you either have five or six tins of the stuff or none at all. Tomato paste, baked beans and salt are similar substances. They are substances which you always buy "just in case you don't have any", even though you probably already have five tins/bottles of the stuff at home anyway. If you decide not to purchase any then chances are you will find yourself baking-powder free upon your return from supermarket.

Obviously, we had no baking powder. Third problem. "Fuck it", I thought, "I've come this far; there's no turning back now! Bicarb will have to do." In went the bicarb. After being stirred I ferreted around in the pantry for some sultanas. Fourth problem. In the end, Dad and I sat there picking sultanas out of a pack of party nuts. I added the sultanas and cornflakes to the mixture and gave it all a good stir.

Mum bought some new analon cookie sheets some time ago because their predecessors (no doubt manufactured before the word "teflon" was a household word) were so disgusting stained and blackened that we didn't feel comfortable eating anything cooked upon them. The new ones are flawless in their non-stick abilities; however they are not so flawless in their overall design. Of the four edges of the rectangular sheet, only three have ridges to stop the contents sliding off. Presumably the reason for this is that one can then shimmy their baked cookies onto the cooling wire easily; since there is no stickage, you just have to tilt the tray and everything skedaddles south with gravity, parachuting over the non-ridged edge onto the waiting wire cooling racks. This is all very well in theory. The number of meat pies that I have heated on these trays that have fallen on the floor because I hadn't held the tray dead level would indicate otherwise.

So I dolloped (yes, that is the technical term) the batter onto the trays and lovingly placed them in the already-preheated oven at 180 degrees. I set a timer for 15 minutes and went for a smoke, confident that this time would be the time in which the curse of the sweet recipes would be broken.

They say pride comes before a fall. "They", whoever they are, are often right.

After my cigarette (all of 3 minutes later) I peeked into the oven and was horrified by what I saw. Rather than hold their dollopesque shape, the cookies had slumped down, flattened out and bled into each other. Rather than being 12 distinct cookie-shaped cookies, I was faced with a single uber-cookie that was the exact same size as the cookie sheet. But remember that I said these new whiz-bang cookie sheets only have three ridged edges? I gulped, took a deep breath, and bent slightly so I could see beneath the top shelf. I looked at the side of the oven and discovered, much to my chagrin, that the batter had cascaded over the edge of the cookie sheet like some kind of butter-cornflake-sultana waterfall, leaving bits of itself down the wall of the oven and on the wire rack beneath it. The cookies on the tray on the second rack met the same fate, cascading over the abyss onto the oven floor. "Oh well, I can just cut it up and I'll still have my cookies, only they'll be a little more square now."

After the fifteen minutes were up, I opened the oven and carefully removed the two trays, being careful not to slop any molten cookie-batter on my bare feet. I had the cooling racks in place on the kitchen bench, so I tilted the cookie sheet on a 45 degree angle and waited patiently for them to shimmy themselves down with gravity. After half a minute I was convinced it wasn't going to happen, so I lay the tray flat and hoed into the siamese-dodecatuplet cookies with an egg slice, cutting it into twelve more-or-less equally sized square frankencookies. They were approximately 20 microns thick; if it wasn't for the cornflakes they wouldn't have any substance to them whatsoever.

At this point, Mum walked into the kitchen to check on my process (read: to gauge how much of a mess I'd made and consequently how much nagging would be required for me to clean up after myself). "They're a little sad aren't they?" she asked, laughing quietly. "They are not sad. They just underwent massive separation surgery from being conjoined dodecatuplets, thank you very much, so you could be a little more compassionate. You're witnessing a miracle here!" I said, hoping my feigned indignation would mask my total embarrassment. "What did you do wrong?" Dad asked, entering the scene. "Nothing! Why do you all assume I did something wrong!? I followed the recipe precisely", I insisted. "Well, precisely except that there wasn't enough caster sugar so I had to use table sugar as well, and there was no baking powder so I used bicarb. Oh and I added the flour before the eggs although I should have done that the other way round. That's all. Apart from that, everything was done according to the recipe, so don't come in here and throw me such wild allegations!"

Dad smiled his irritating Cheshire cat grim.
Mum laughed silently, shaking her head.
I bowed my head in shame.