At Least We Tried

Have you ever seen The In-Laws? The 1979 version with Peter Falk and Alan Arkin. At one point, Falk asks Arkin to break into his office, and Arkin sees an autographed photo of JFK saying “Thanks for your help, at least we tried.” Tried what? The Bay Of Pigs, of course! “You were involved in the Bay Of Pigs?” “Involved? It was my idea!”

Niko and I made cookies today. Involved? It was my idea!

The highlight was when I asked Niko to help me break an egg into a bowl. He griped it in his tiny fist and tried to crush it. “grrrr” he said. “GRRRRR!” I showed him how to hold the bowl with one hand and tap the egg on the side of the bowl with his other hand. Then he helped me prick the yolk with the tines of a fork and scramble it up just a bit.

The cookies were a total disaster.

You may have seen a 4-ingredient nutella cookie recipe floating around, especially if you’re on Pinterest.

It’s 4 ingredients, right? I’ve been baking cookies for over 15 years. What could go wrong?

I have no idea. One very likely problem is that, since we have a hazelnut allergy in our household, I didn’t use Nutella: I used a cocoa-almond spread (from Trader Joe’s). The problem might lie in the different ingredients (although the ingredients, other than the nut used, seem pretty similar) or in the oil content (maybe almonds have less oil than hazelnuts?). The dough was extremely dry, only coming together when I squeezed it in my hands (something that other people who followed the directions with no substitutions also complained about), the cookies spread, and they are just… disgusting. The primary taste is of raw flour, and they are gritty and leathery at the same time. I have never had a baking fail this bad.

We’re going to try again tomorrow with peanut butter cookies.

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