Lindy Ward
February 19, 2013
ENG 110
Process Analysis
Cookies for Shelby Baking cookies with my five-year-old daughter Shelby is quite an event. I love the mess and the chaos involved. She is my only child, and she won’t love baking cookies with me forever. I should probably make more time for baking. After all, the end result is always a success. The hardest part for me is to remember to set the butter out at room temperature the day before. Surprisingly, Shelby is always more excited about the process than the end result. I remember baking cookies with my mom as a child. I only remember the Christmas cookie event, because there probably was not mid-year cookie baking taking place. I hope Shelby holds on to our baking memories as she grows up. The beginning of this cooking fiasco is putting on the proper attire. There are two beige aprons that hang in our kitchen. A red and black swirl design screen printed on the front surrounds the word “Mommy” on mine, and “Me” on hers. They were a gift from one of Shelby’s schoolteachers. She typically hands me mine, we both put them on and she waits for me to tie hers behind her back. Shelby would cook every meal with me if I let her. Unfortunately, cooking with my child is not conducive to efficient meal preparation, or edible meals for that matter. Now that we are properly dressed, we collect all of our ingredients. We get from the pantry, the flour, white and brown sugar, salt, and baking soda. Then we open the refrigerator to get the eggs, and retrieve the vanilla from the spice rack. We set it all out on the gray Formica kitchen counter, get out all of our measuring cups and spoons, two large bowls, a spatula and the Kitchen Aid mixer. The mixer is housed in the pantry and collects dust until we are ready to bake cookies. The absurd weight of a Kitchen Aide Mixer, the lengthy clean up and large area required for storage are all completely worth the effortless cookie dough. When using an electric mixer, Toll House has a better recipe on their package for chocolate chip cookies. Once we are totally prepared to start mixing our cookie dough, we have to pull up a chair from the kitchen table for Shelby to stand on. Shelby is 44in. tall, and it is about chin height to her. This was a learned step in our preparation, since she use to pull the chair up immediately and it inhibited free movement around the kitchen during the gathering process. The other possibility is for Shelby to sit on the counter although this method is much riskier. At this stage of our cookie preparation I preheat the oven to 375 degrees. We mix our dry ingredients first in one of our empty bowls. We measure and mix two and a quarter cups of flour, one half-teaspoon salt and one teaspoon of baking soda in the bowl with a spoon. This step makes a large mess and allows for plenty of opportunity to draw pictures in the flour spilled on the counter and the floor. We take a picture now, since we are both covered in the flour mixture. The dry ingredients are then set aside, so we can continue to the next step. Now we start our wet ingredients by putting the two sticks of butter, three quarters of a cup of both white and brown sugar into the mixer bowl. The directions call for medium speed, so we set the mixer and watch it. Shelby starts asking if she can taste the dough. I remind her of the many ingredients that we still have to mix in. I turn off the mixer, so she can add the two teaspoons of vanilla extract. In our second empty bowl, Shelby cracks both eggs, and I remove any bits of shell that have fallen in. She and I take turns gently beating the eggs with a fork, and then add them to the mixture. I set the mixer at low speed, and tell Shelby she can start to scoop the flour mixture into a measuring cup and add one scoop at a time to the wet mixture. I have to increase the speed to medium during this step, as flour begins to thicken our dough. We continue scooping the dry into the wet until the dry ingredient bowl is emptied. I turn off the mixer when I no longer see any white from the flour. I lift the arm of the mixer so we can begin the lengthy taste testing session. On occasion, this is the end of our cookie process. We will eat cookie dough, without the chocolate chips and store the leftovers for later in the week. We double dip our spoons and put our fingers in the bowl of dough. There is, however, the occasional batch made with clean hands and spoons, so we can share with friends. While Shelby eats an absurd amount of cookie batter, I continue our process. I remove the baking sheet from the drawer under the oven. I quickly stir in one half bag of chocolate chips, to slow down the tasting. I start scooping, with two spoons, one-tablespoon size balls onto the ungreased cookie sheet. I leave about two inches in between each cookie because the batter will spread with heat. Bake for nine to eleven minutes or until golden brown. Depending on the amount of raw dough that we eat the package recipe yields four dozen cookies. I have never realistically had more than two dozen when I am finished. I usually tend to complete the final steps by myself. Shelby does not like to wait for the cookies to bake, nor does she enjoy cleaning up the mess. It should be all about the fun and the cookie dough bellyache for her. I will do the hard parts. I clean up all of the spills, and put away all of our unused ingredients. I use a spatula to scoop the baked cookies off the cookie sheet onto a plate. I repeat the scooping and baking steps until the cookie dough is gone. I like for my cookies to be crispy on the edges and gooey in the center. To achieve this result I use fairly large scoops of dough. The final stages of our cookie baking consist of putting the finished cookies into a Tupperware container, and eating lots of warm cookies. I have cleaned up the mess, and at this point my five year old has disappeared. All of the dishes are clean, and the cookies are put away. Both Shelby and I have a belly ache, and agree that we have eaten far too much of the cookie ingredients. Now the only thing left to do is change our clothes and take a bath. This process definitely warrants a full body cleaning.