French la Vie

How to at cookie dough and not feel guilty about it.

Oh the joy of chocolate chip cookies- oops I mean white chocolate chip cookies.

Chelsea often makes chocolate chips cookies, well that is when we have chocolate chips to make them. Buying a chocolate bar and cutting it up in bite size pieces works, but the chocolate chip (or I should say chunks) cookies do not taste the same. Good, real good in fact, but not the same. 

The chocolate chips cookies that Chelsea makes are about caressing the memories of home in the States. When Sacha came back from California he remembered to bring chocolate chips. Thanks to him we have a healthy year’s supply of Toll House chocolate chips in our kitchen armoire. 

This year he also brought back white chocolate chips. What the heck? That is a new twist to tradition. Sacha is like that full of twist and turns and yet right on track.

Chelsea got right down to task. The recipe is on the Toll House package. Dark cocoa powder is used to make the dough chocolate-y. 

Wow were they good, the dough was delicious! Yes I eat cookie dough.

Chelsea is a very practical baker. She follows recipes, she measures the ingredients, she uses two spoons (since we do not have a small scooper) to scoop out the cookie dough. Chelsea would never use her finger to scoop out the dough, nor roll it gently into little balls unless it said so. No she is not a touchy-feely person, even as a child she would not finger painting. She is mathematical, she bakes like a scientist, and the chocolate chip cookies she makes are deliciously perfect. I could be exaggerating, on purpose about my lovely thoughtful daughter. Except, she makes flawless cookies.

Not at all like mine, which are hit and miss, and often mistaken for rocks. I cook instead of bake, it is much more forgiving.

You see I am more of a flaky person who cannot make a flaky pie crust. 

Rich thick chocolate fudge like dough. God was it good. I scooped one finger full after another and ate it when Chelsea wasn’t looking. Sacha sneaks snatches too, but he is not as clever as me and gets caught in the act.

I tell you what I have a thing for Cookie Dough. I rarely make cookies because I eat the dough…. gee…OH… a light bulb just went on in my head… Eating cookie dough is like reading the last page of a book, or the last paragraph of a letter, before you reach the end… I am a-jump-in-and-do-it-kind-a-person, please do not say I am into instant gratification. Maybe we could call it, “living the moment” and leave it at that.

Oh no.

Chelsea is a lot like her father. He never liked to finger paint either and he certainly would never eat raw cookie dough. 

They are organized which stabilizes my chaos. 

I never have to worry about where they are, or what they are doing, they are straight arrows that aim for the mark. 

And Sacha? Well… let’s just say we dance to the same drum, and often dance when there isn’t a drum. 

I will never stop licking the spoons and my fingers too, unless Sacha beats me to it. (Don’t freak out we don’t reuse the spoon!)

Please tell me that I am not that much different from you?

Do you follow recipes or not?
Do you lick the bowl?
Did you like finger painting?

Repost 2019

Thanks, to my mother who taught us the joy of being in the kitchen. Chelsea is like my mother in that she follows instructions and is straightforward with a loving heart.

The photo above was taken years ago yet if that little butcher block could talk it wouldn’t stop telling you the history of baking with my mom it would tell you about the laughter, the messes, and the moments of pure joy spent together, as we measured, mixed, and baked with love in every bite.