Saturday, August 16, 2014

THE ROYAL BAKER


I have this theory which I've mentioned often.... why walk when I can ride? Or... why drive when I can fly? Or... why go up steps when I could use an elevator? Or basically... why do anything that would expend unnecessary energy when I could easily opt for a much lazier way to get the task done? Like when my kid was born and all these hippie-dip Mothers were pureeing their own baby food mixtures or juicing their own fruits and veggies for the kid. Me? I totally took the easy way out, figuring Gerber Baby Foods already had the entire deal all down pat. Who am I to compete with the pros??

Which is pretty much how I feel when it comes to baking. Man... baking is hard. It's way more a timed and measured science than regular cooking is, often including a huge amount of steps and ingredients which in turn then mandates your having to clean an entire kitchen when it's all over. MUCH better... to my way of thinking... is to head out to the closest upscale bakery in town and let THEM do the baking! They have the whole process DEFinitely down to a proven science and besides... their stuff is ALWAYS delicious! No muss. No fuss.

Except... a few weeks ago, when I saw something on Pinterest that totally knocked me out. It's up there in the picture... QUEEN ELIZABETH COOKIES!! Oh man... was I ever thrilled. Immediately I decided I'm going to have a whole bunch of women over, make it for a 3:00 Tea Party, serve Royal Cookies and dainty Tea Sandwiches and boom. A regal celebration! 

Plus... you should SEE what these people on Pinterest do to the cookies. All KINDS of colored shiny, royal (no pun intended) frosting and decorations up the kazoo. It's amazing! These decorations too, piqued my interest but already I could see I've got a LONG way to go before I perfect THAT sort of little touch. Case in point... here's a picture of the OTHER cookie cutter I bought, but showing what OTHERS have done to spruce up the finished look.



Anyway...

In keeping with my theories of ease, I went to the store and naturally bought PRE-MADE cookie dough. Seriously... why the hell make a dough from scratch with all the ingredients AND letting it rise or whatever the hell you need to do first. Pre-made? I'm definitely their target audience. Oh yeah... I bought the Sugar Cookie dough and decided it would work perfectly.

Oh really?? Perfectly?? You SO have to be kidding me. What an f-ing idiot baker I am. A five year old could have done better!! Don't believe me?? Just you wait. 

I rolled out the amount of dough that I thought each cookie would require (the cutter was huge) and bingo I put each Queen shaped dough onto the parchment paper, and then onto the cookie sheet. THAT part was fine. I figured I could fit six Queens per sheet. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? WANNA SEE HOW THEY TURNED OUT?? SITTING DOWN??



OMG. A royal DISASTER is how they turned out! What?? These DON'T look like the Queen?? Oh man. Don't even ask!

I can't TELL you how shocked I was to see how these cookies turned out! I had to burst out LAUGHing at the utter MESS of a shape these became! WTF HAPPENED? God only knows other than... were I teaching the five year old what shapes look like, I'd have had a GREAT LOOKING SQUARE GOING ON HERE. Sorta. Can you even believe this??? Where the hell is the QUEEN? Talk about a total melt down.

Of course the bullshit shape didn't keep me from tasting the huge cookies, but who cares. But seriously... I was STUNNED at the total flop my cookies turned out to be! Which then made me Google how to use store bought dough with cookie cutters. Apparently I should have put them in the refrigerator after they were on the cooking sheet so they could kinda get cool first or something. Yeah. I could do that next time, alright or...

I could just take the cookie cutter shapes and head right smack out to my favorite bakery and say: HERE. MAKE THESE SHAPES INTO SUGAR COOKIES PLEASE AND CHARGE ME WHATEVER THE HELL YOU'D LIKE. THANKS. Which is exactly what I think I am going to do, considering I'd still love to have a Tea Party. 


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