Thursday, September 16, 2010

Hot Mess Martha Cookies

This evening I made "Martha Stewart Oatmeal Lace Cookies." Or as I like to call them, "Hot Mess Cookies." Actually, I initially called them something else but I'm a bit calmer about the whole thing now.
The recipe is basically an oatmeal cookie minus the flour recipe, the intent being crisp, flat, lacey cookies. I followed the directions, baked and vee-o-la...hot mess cookies. I mean, I even had the requisite parchment paper! Do you realize how astounding it is that I both have and used parchment paper? This is true progress for me. And basically the 9 cookies lovingly measured (yes...MEASURED!) onto the parchment melded into one giant hot mess of a cookie that became one with the parchment paper. It was like those dot candies that you peel off and no one seems to mind that you always eat a little bit of paper? Except this was quite a lot of paper stuck to very sweet oatmeal. Not sure in exactly what part of the world this is a delicacy but I have confirmed that it is not Dearborn, Michigan.
So I took a pic and texted it to my mom with my original name for them.
Having a pot (because Martha explicitly instructed me to use a pot) of hot mess batter, I figured I may as well try again. So I added more oatmeal to thicken the mess up, parchment in place, measured one table spoon each, three inches apart, flatten with the back of a spoon this time only putting six cookies on the cookie sheet, cook for 15 minutes and and and and...
Vee-o-la! Slight less hot mess. Cookies one and two did not successfully part with the parchment but cookies four through six (six cookies per batch, ridiculous) were quite cookie like. Let's recap: Batch one is one giant paper hot mess cookie. I did scrape it and eat it. I did.
Batch two, cookies one and two did not part from the parchment successfully. Cookies three through six were delivered to the cooling rack without incident.
Lessons learned: Fewer cookies per batch, more oatmeal for a thicker batter, remove parchment from cookie sheet and cool parchment paper with cookies on cooling rack, move cooled parchment paper onto counter and gently spatula cookies back onto cooling rack to complete cooling process. Which brings to the present...
Batch number three, six cookies baking. Hear dinger and think, "That was a fast 15 minutes!" Walk to oven and the timer says 10 minutes remaining. Wonder briefly what the dinger was and return to computer so as not to miss a detail of the riveting saga of these cookies.
Hear dinger and return to oven only then remembering you had put tea into the microwave and that was the original dinger. Tea now cold. Reset timer on microwave, remove hot mess batch three. Gingerly lift parchment paper from cookie sheet and place on cooling rack. Put honey in tea. Scrape another bite of hot mess paper cookies off parchment paper and feel slightly nauseated. Call Jay to bring over Crave Case because you need to eat something substantial. Think that you should throw batch one away and stop scraping them off and eating them. Think very carefully, don't be rash.
Decide that with batch three and all six cookie parchment paper resections complete without any complications you are in the home stretch.
Decide you hate these cookies and will never make them again. And you also hate Martha Stewart because she probably did this on purpose. Not really.
Sip your tea, load the dishwasher, and light a candle instead of cursing the cookie darkness.

http://images.marthastewart.com/images/content/pub/ms_living/1991//la_0791_lace_cookie_l.jpg

3 comments:

Pat said...

You should have posted the actual cookie picture you sent me...it would provide more ummppphhh to your story! LOL!
So I was right...they did get eaten, they always do.
Glad you cleaned up what you named the cookies, don't embarrass the family. Wait, I think it's too late.

Trish said...

If you want my opinion (which doesn't amount to much) I think Miss Martha Stewart does it on purpose! LOL. Oh, yes!
Just think about it...everything she does is perfect! She, with her fully staffed test kitchen...humph!
They don't show their blob stuck to the parchment paper. No, after batch # 7 theirs are perfected.
And we are left feeling like big ol' failures, while scraping cookie blob off parchment paper and eating it for crying out loud!!! And she says ..."it's a good thing." I'm just sayin'...

Margie said...

you are too funny!