Rookie Mistake
Posted in Recipes on 10/20/2007 04:32 pm by enjanerdBaked cookies today for the first time in months. I really need to resurrect the cookie exchange. Especially now that Sonny’s overseas again and needs a care package.
So, I made a rookie mistake today while baking. Don’t worry, I used the right amount of butter this time. I checked twice before I started, once as I was mixing, and again after I taste-tested for quality control and was just sitting in my room. I’m that
paranoid about measuring butter.
Anyway, I took the first cookie sheet out of the oven, put the second sheet in, waited 2 minutes, then moved the first tray of cookies onto the cooling rack. I then rotated the cooling rack to the other counter and moved sheet #1 to the stove to refill so the other cooling rack would be ready for sheet #2 when it came out of the oven. Repeated: sheet #2 out of oven, sheet #1 back in, wait 2 minutes, move cookies. Then, I attempted to move sheet #2 to the stove… with my bare hand. And I whimpered like a dog that’s been kicked.
It felt like a full second that my hand was on the corner of the cookie sheet before my brain registered that I shouldn’t be touching that. It was seconds after I had whimpered, pulled my hand away, and Ian called from the other room to find out what had happened that I realized what a dumb move that was. Whoops. Put some ice on it, good as new.
I haven’t burned my hand baking cookies since junior year in college. And that was because I didn’t have an oven mitt. I grabbed the pan with a potholder and the potholder slipped just enough that my thumb was touching the pan, but I couldn’t do anything until I finished putting it down on the counter. (No way I’m dropping fresh-baked cookies. I’m not that big a wimp.)
The cookie sheets I have now are fantastic. My mom got them for me a few years ago. They’re thick aluminum like I see all the fancy people on Food Network use. Distributes the heat evenly and I have never burned cookies on those pans. But they also hold the heat in really well and I don’t use them often enough to make sure I remember. I guess I’ll remember a few weeks longer now.