Day 45: Cooking up a cookie storm

Everyone in the UK is obsessed with The Great British Bake-off, so it was with trepidation that I decided to approach baking as a fun, playful activity. Time was, baking biscuits or cakes would absolutely be seen as play, but everyone’s started taking it very seriously these days.

I guess mindset is key to the approach. Rather than treating this as life-or-death, win-or-lose, perfect-or-soggy-bottomed, I simply set out to see if I could make some cookies from a suggested foolproof recipe that I’d never tried.

I’d been inspired by the wonderful Chefsteps (big recommend if you’re into cooking!). They had what sounded like a simple recipe, and promised chewy cookies (an adjective that I consider to be vital!). Despite a difficulty with the non-availability of pastry flour in the UK (I decided to believe those that advocated the UK’s plain flour to be a different beast from the US all-purpose), I was soon weighing and chopping.

I decide that, despite the added effort up-front and in washing up, I’d practice mise en place (when you put everything measured out in little bowls like they improbably do on TV). And in fact this really did make for a stress-free experience. I soon had dough in the oven.

Sure enough, I was soon taking out chewy, delicious, if a little over-salty cookies. I’ll dial down the salt next time, but there’ll definitely be a next time.

And I had LOTS of fun!

If bitterness wants to get into the act, I offer it a cookie or a gumdrop. – James Broughton

Ease of play: 5/10 

Resemblance to play: 6/10 

Aggression: Low-to-Medium

Speed: Medium

Enjoyability: Medium

Potential frequency of play: Medium (if I don’t want to get really fat!)