In the time of cookies.

You'll have to excuse me - it's that time of the year (by this, I mean it's the time of the year that all my friends are already off from school and traipsing around the beach while I'm still a ways away from taking finals - the quarter system is a blessing and a curse). My posts will probably be sparse until I get out of school and move into the house I'll be subletting for summer vacation. You wouldn't know I was on break from the work schedule I've already devised for myself, but I will be getting a welcome break from those awful things known as "assignments" and "papers."

In the meantime, cookies!

I kind of went on a cookie-making binge recently - three batches in under a week! Each batch made at least two dozen cookies, if not more (like four dozen!)! Someone less consumed by memorizing the French subjunctive and finishing a grant proposal revising a short story and learning cognitive psychology do some math for me, will you? Anyway, the first batch of cookies I made were delicious and chewy and they looked just like the cookies on Handle the Heat (which is where I got the recipe). The only caveat was they tasted ever so faintly of baking soda. So I tried to rectify this when I found a forgotten, half-full bag of milk chocolate chip cookies in one of the dorm kitchens, but I ended up mixing the baking soda with too much water and... well. Enter extra sticky batter. Those cookies crisped up to no tomorrow, and many of them burned. Actually, the first ones burned a little bit too, and I'm still not entirely sure why. Baking is a science still somewhat beyond my grasp (especially with these disappointing ovens - again, hooray for summer sublets!).

The third batch of cookies were a delightful little sugar cookie from Allrecipes. Once again, tiniest bit of baking soda (does anyone know what I'm doing wrong?), but once they set (and especially the next day, even after sitting out all night), they were wonderful. As per many readers' suggestion, pop them out of the oven before you think they're done - if you let them get golden, they'll get really tough after a few minutes. I didn't get any photos of them, but Peter told me they tasted like childhood, and that's good enough for me. Maybe good enough for you too?

I linked to both recipes above - pardon the laziness, but school calls! See you soon!