high-bar baking

I’m the kind of person who can’t ask for help. Not help as-is. I can loudly walk around announcing things like “I’M NEW HERE, WHAT BALLROOM ARE THE LESSONS IN?”, because what monster would get mad at someone who’s so clearly new? I said so, didn’t I? 

Or I can throw baked goods at people. As if they didn’t love me. As if they wouldn’t show up when I asked them to, reward or not. But some little broken piece of circuitry in my brain is whispering, “A Lannister pays her debts” and makes me want to pay all favours back immediately. If you’re familiar with the English language, that’s not the definition of a favour, folks. 

And then, of course, we mustn’t pretend that I’m not out here baking as a control mechanism. Life might be crazy and silly and sad, but if I put flour and eggs and sugar together for the right amount of time, reasonably good cookies are going to come out of the oven. I might have slept in until 10am (is my immune system hurting but hasn’t told me?), and I might be a nonzero amount of stressed about the possibility of acquiring a mortgage. But I “have” to make cookies for my buddy who’s going to the condo viewing with me, and oh look, now I feel better. I have a modicum of control, imagine that. 

I was looking for one of Sarah’s recipes that wouldn’t break the time bank (see: oversleeping) and that I hadn’t made at least a dozen times before. What a problem, I know, when there are enough great recipes in 100 Cookies that I have go-to favourites. I’d only done these Peanut Butter Cookies once before, so I settled on them. I still haven’t made them with the optional candied peanuts, apologies, apologies. Making caramel-adjacent things is such a barrier to entry, I decided to give myself a pass and just try the cookies first. And then again this weekend. Makes me wonder what I went through all the trouble for, to buy those special peanuts that were processed in a facility that doesn’t handle any other nuts. A problem for another day!

These are soft and peanut-buttery and lovely. Nothing incredibly special; but also nothing wrong with them in the slightest. It’s just a good cookie. And sometimes that’s exactly what you need.