Foodie CornerIn their wonderful blog, Plated Stories, Jamie Schler and Ilva Beretta discuss the delicious and very versatile fruit desserts know as Crumbles, Crisps, and Bettys.
That’s the way the cookie crumbles
Cookies, I believe, are the most unforgiving of all baked goods; they are, in my humble opinion, time consuming and aggravating. I speak from experience. Folding in the flour, all that elbow grease – one’s entire upper body and muscles we never otherwise use called into service – needed to turn those staple ingredients into something stiff and sticky, scooping up and pushing off spoonful by spoonful of batter onto a row of baking sheets, goo up to our elbows, in our hair and stuck to our face, then popped in the oven, 8 minutes, 10, 12 tops, waiting, watching, scooping, pushing more batter, another baking sheet, and another and another and another when will it ever stop and is the cookie dough actually growing? And. Leave the cookies in just one or two minutes too long and they are too crispy, burned around the edges. And crumbling into sand.
That’s the way the cookie crumbles. So why do I bother? Why bake cookies when cake is so much simpler in so many ways that cookies are not? My men. Love cookies.
Cookies are a part of our childhood: tiny hands slipped surreptitiously into cookie jars, stolen treasure stuffed into pockets and carried off to be eaten sitting high up in the branches of a favorite tree or under the blankets shhhh no crumbs or mom will find out! Bedazzled by the array of cookies wrapped carefully in foil, bringing a handful of home to the school playground. Curled up with a book in the comfy armchair with a selection of cookies stacked up within easy reach, eyes locked on the page as we blindly feel for another and another. Cookies are child’s play, the perfect size, big enough to satisfy, small enough to allow for a selection, one of each, not having to choose just one. Satisfying first bite over and over again, an endless choice of flavors. And I am just happy that my little French boys experienced the pleasure, and continue to clamor (along with their father) for cookies. (To read more and get the recipe for Nectarine Cherry Crumble click here.)