But you can pull it off with 10 minutes and a big mixing bowl. What came out of the oven was a veritable dream, a cross between a croissant and rugelach with the kind of pillowy flaky layers pastry chefs work tirelessly to achieve through focused applications of regimented amounts of butter to floury doughs. Instead, I will tell you this so you can make your way through this recipe with serenity. Oh, if I could go back in time and just tell myself to shut it, awesomeness is nigh I would. I hope you know where this is going: These are some of the best things I have ever made. I really sound like fun, don’t I? Hey, who wants me to review their cookbook?! When it was time to roll out the cookies, I was positive that they’d open up and jelly would burn up all over the pan and really felt more detail was warranted on how to avoid this. Or, perhaps, there isn’t supposed to be any sugar but don’t you think they should mention that in the headnote so people don’t become alarmed? I spent 15 minutes debating whether I should follow the recipe or add sugar, getting increasingly grumpy with each (uh, single-step) pace of the kitchen floor before deciding to the take the recipe at its obviously incorrect word. Then, I was mixing the dough and I checked and rechecked and what? Where was the sugar? What kind of cookie doesn’t have sugar in it? It would be terrible. First, it told me I’d have more than enough cheese when I barely had enough which sent me into a fit of “Should you pack the measuring cup? Should it fall loosely in there? This recipe is from 1973, at no time over the last 37 years could they have inserted that important detail?” and other distractions. Plus, I love a recipe that calls for something I’m trying to use up, in this case, a brick of farmer cheese. So last Thursday, I decided to make some delightful looking cookies from The Gourmet Cookie Book as a hostess gift for our Christmas Eve dinner. A recipe I feel would benefit from an overhaul is a needling reminder that even with a team of very able people involved, perfection is unattainable and one day someone will be standing in a kitchen wondering how nobody saw that inevitable typo in my book and lordy, is it too early for a drink? It leads to a lot of grumpiness in the kitchen. Why wasn’t this tested better? Would it have killed them to add this highly relevant detail? How many editorial hands did this recipe pass through and not a single one of them could have corrected this bogus weight? It’s not pretty and, tellingly, the tendency has only become exacerbated since I began writing my own cookbook. Let me try again, from the place where I own up to something: I often get really cranky with recipes when I cook. Wow, that was totally not what this post was supposed to be about. Just kidding! I emphatically do not snore, not even when I have had wine with dinner and a lingering head cold and it would have been completely understandable. Because if I don’t mention this today I believe my husband will pop out of lurkdom and tsk-tsk me publicly for it, let me own up to one thing: I snore.
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