I fear I sound like a slightly vulgar Nancy Drew sometimes. But then again, she would have had her trusty and reliable housekeeper, Hannah Gruen, bake the damn cookies for her. And in Nancy’s adventurous life, beset with jewel thieves and bouts of water-skiing, nothing much ever went awry. But clever boots Nancy never tried to bake World Peace Cookies. I apologize to Bon Appétit for ruining their recipe, which in the right hands, is delicious.
I set out to make World Peace Cookies, because of the charming name and conceit. Wouldn’t it be fabulous if we could promote world peace with a delightful batch of freshly baked cookies? Think of the bake sales, all over the world, where different cultures could agree on the tastiness of these sweet, chocolate morsels. We could turn the UN building into housing for the homeless. There would be an overabundance of plowshares. Technology could focus on finding clean water instead of spinning plutonium into bombs. We could reverse global warming.
This peace movement is not going to start in my kitchen. Perhaps this is why my family usually only baked cookies at Christmas time when I was growing up. Perhaps I have a baking condition. Or perhaps I am embracing the notion of fall and the change in the weather a little too enthusiastically. Do I really want to wear socks again? How badly do I want to be Martha Stewart? Or Nigella Lawson, who despite her domestic problems, always seems to enjoy herself lustily while baking. I suppose I should have seen disaster as it came hurtling its way toward me when the baking powder fell off the tippy-top shelf of the kitchen cabinet where all the spices and seasonings live, put far out of the reach of my tiny little fingers by my son, The Tall One.
When the baking powder fell, it did not explode, which would have been too cinematic in its foreshadowing implications. Then I saw another red tin of baking powder on another, more reachable shelf. And ever curious, I turned each canister around to read its sell-by date. This revelation is at least as embarrassing as last year when I discovered that our Old Bay Seasoning was a decade old, if not older. As I scanned the labels I discovered that I had a choice between baking powder that should have been off the shelf and out of the house in 2004, and another which safely expires in 2014. Somehow it gladdened me that I had fairly current baking powder so I was not too mortified by the discovery of the ancient baking powder. Until now, that is. I hope my fate does not rest on me becoming a Collyer who hoards ancient spices, seasonings and ingredients. Much better to be discovered flattened under a mound of yellowing magazines heralding royal weddings and births…
I assembled the rest of ingredients, preheated the oven, sifted and mixed, chopped and divided, Saran-wrapped two long logs of chocolate dough, and refrigerated, as required. I felt as smug as Bridget Jones, before she discovered the blue string had colored her otherwise beauteous soup. I walked away from the kitchen, knowing that in a few short hours I would be slicing and baking noble World Peace Cookies.
Later on in the kitchen… Oh, the wages of sin. Pride goeth, and all that. I almost had to get out the electric knife to slice the damn hardened logs of dough. I hacked away at the titanium chocolate dough, and after a while, and after a fashion, I managed to slice it into crumbly little circles. Baked it tasted just fine. If I had wanted nice, crumbly chocolate bits. I was supposed to be ending famine, wars and nuclear winter. In the end I had about one dozen presentable cookies. Hardly enough to effect global miracles.
And now children, since you have been Patient and Gentle Readers, I will make the confession. Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I was forced to take Home Ec in junior high school. I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to learn how to sew a pink apron, or to learn how to make a white sauce. I wanted to take Print Shop. And I obviously did not listen (as Nancy Drew would have) to my teacher as she explained that there was a huge difference between the chemical qualities of baking powder and baking soda. (Not that she explained the chemistry – we were bubble-headed girls after all…) World Peace Cookies recipe called for baking soda. I had used baking powder.
I suppose this could be my Proustian moment. I was forced to recall my childhood, and all the joys of junior high school.
The next batch was perfect. Go to the link below to see how my cookies should have looked. How your cookies can look. Peace!
https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/world-peace-cookies
I read about a great way to save $12 in the New York Times on Wednesday: by not buying $12 cookie purée from the Tumbador Chocolate Shop in Brooklyn. Instead I whacked the first batch of cookies into cookie crumble with a rolling pin, and now have a container of sweet chocolate World Peace Crumble to sprinkle over ice cream.
“The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it….” but “….as soon as I had recognized the taste of the piece of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-blossom which my aunt used to give me …. immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like a stage set to attach itself to the little pavilion opening on to the garden which had been built out behind it for my parents.”
Marcel Proust (1871-1922)
‘Remembrance of Things Past’
Write a Letter to the Editor on this Article
We encourage readers to offer their point of view on this article by submitting the following form. Editing is sometimes necessary and is done at the discretion of the editorial staff.