2009
c is for cookie
maura @ 9:28 pm
Last week, in honor of the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street, Google had a different Sesame-themed logo each day. I happened to be teaching many of those days and it kept cracking me up every time we used Google for searching in class. Cookie Monster was the funniest — his eyeballs were the “oo” in Google
This week I had many meetings with pastries, which kind of takes the edge off having many meetings. After today’s meeting (2 cookies: oatmeal raisin and chocolate w/white chocolate chips) I was thinking about different kinds of desserts. And I kept on thinking after dinner, too (raspberry meringue sandwich cookie).
So here’s Maura’s Hierarchy of Desserts (in order of preference):
1. Cookies: More often than not if there’s a dessert choice I will pick something in the baked goods category. Cookies are usually the winner, beating out cake ever so slightly (see below). I mostly don’t want a huge pile of dessert, so cookies are a good choice. And I often like to have a couple of different flavor options, which is also possible with cookies. These days we’ve got our xmas cookie baking down to a science and most of my favorites are in there: a delicious iced molasses-spice cookie, good old reliable peanut butter cookies, butter cookie sandwiches with raspberry and apricot jam, and your basic chocolate chip cookie (though oatmeal chocolate chip is another tasty option).
2. Cakes: To be fair, I do like cakes, too. I include brownies in the cakes category, though if they’re too chocolatey I will often pass. For the longest time when I was growing up my birthday cakes were always chocolate cake with vanilla frosting. Jonathan makes a mean chocolate cupcake, so these days we usually have that for my birthday, too. But I also like the traditional old yellow cake with chocolate frosting. And red velvet cake and applesauce cake and gingerbread and pound cake and …
One thing I am very particular about is the ratio of cake to frosting. I can’t really deal with tons of frosting, esp. if it’s that fakey sugary supermarket frosting. I’d much rather have a smaller amt of buttercream or even a nice glaze. I don’t like puddings/custard/flan/etc. at all so I’m sure the frosting thing is of the same ilk.
3. Chocolate: Of course I like chocolate, who doesn’t? It’s clearly the most superior of all candies. I used to love dark chocolate best, but now I can groove on milk chocolate, too. I wish we had better chocolate in this country (= less sugary); whenever we travel we always come back loaded down with better chocolate bars from other places. A well-timed piece of chocolate can really brighten your day.
4. Other candy: Other, non-chocolate kinds of candy can be nice, too, mainly of the sour fruit or cinnamon variety. Like Lemonheads and Red Hots, yum. Also Dum-Dums — my dad’s parents used to keep a bag of these in a drawer in their kitchen when I was little.
5. Ice cream: I do like ice cream, despite what some people keep saying, really I do. But I will admit that it’s not my favorite kind of dessert. Mostly I like vanilla with chunks of stuff in it (chocolate, caramel, etc.). And the grownup flavors like maple walnut, cinnamon, sweet cream, and coffee. I’m happy to occasionally head to the schmantzy ice cream place around the corner from us and have a cup or cone, but it doesn’t haunt my dreams.
3 comments on “c is for cookie”
Yes, the homestead is nearly pieless. See–’cause–it’s no fun eating an entire lemon meringue pie by yourself.
Yeah, you know, I like *some* kinds of pie, but not all. Sometimes they are mushy enough that the fall into the pudding/custard category which is a no-go for me. J did make a lemon meringue pie once and it was like deadly Kryptonite for me (as much as I love lemons).
Madeleine would eat ice cream every meal of every day if we let her! (Possibly taking a break for cereal.)
I didn’t like cake much at all until we lived in the south. They make better cakes there, I can’t explain it!
PIE — miss, you forgot about the pie! My mom makes awesome pie. My favorite chocolate pie is from a bbq place in Virginia. But oddly, I don’t really care about crust — so maybe what I really like is cobbler. Mmmm, cobbler.