Thank Heavens Hard Boiled Eggs Aren't In Baked Goods

While grocery shopping today with my loving husband JD, I passed some packages of hard boiled eggs that I thought would taste great in the tuna salad I planned to make for tomorrow's lunch. Then I flashed back to all of the times I have attempted to hard boil eggs at home.

As any young woman would do, I started my hard boiled tenure by consulting The Joy of Cooking, where there are simple step-by-step instructions on how to deliver the perfect egg. And it worked. Once. Since then I have tried countless times to cook a hard boiled egg to perfection, and each attempt has ended in one of the following: hard to peel eggs, hard to peel eggs, and hard to peel eggs.

Now, I have consulted several sources to find out what I am doing wrong (since Joy is obviously not idiot-proof). I have read cookbooks, blog entries, Google answers, and magazine articles. I have consulted my mother, friends, co-workers, and my dog. I have started with cold water, warm water, eggs in at start, eggs in at boil, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, immediate boil, cold water, ice water, salt, new eggs, old eggs, peeling them hot, peeling them cold, peeling them room temperature, rolling the egg, cracking the egg, singing to the egg...But this time was different. This time I knew things were going to turn out. I just had a feeling. So, I passed up the immaculate pre-boiled eggs and headed home to my dozen raw eggs.

The first sign of trouble was the lack of eggs. There were only three. And one was cracked. There were only two. I would not be deterred.

I did not need Joy this time. I knew exactly what I was doing. So, I poured some water into a pot, put in my lovely two eggs, had a last minute change of heart, opened the book, poured out the water, put the two eggs at the bottom of the pot, filled the pot with water measuring one-inch above the eggs, noted that this was impossible due to the fact that the eggs were floating (is that a bad sign?), and put the pot on the stove to boil. Good start.

I was going to do this to the letter. Let the water boil, then immediately take the pot off and let the eggs sit for 12 minutes before pouring cold water over them to stop the cooking. But it would take a minute for the boil, so I decided to make my lunch for the next day, and use the restroom, and check out something on the computer...until JD yelled from the kitchen that the water was boiling. "For how long?" I asked. "I don't know," he replied. Sigh.

I rushed to take the lid off the pot, slid it off the burner and noted the time so I could return in 12 minutes to pour cold water over it. And then JD and I took the dog for a walk. It was a lovely walk: nice weather, a slight breeze, engrossing conversation, and an interesting new route. We returned in good spirits, and JD started to fix his chicken salad. As I looked at his shredded chicken, I thought to myself that I was glad my lunch was already made. Too bad for JD that I used the last two--EGGS. I forgot the eggs. Again.

I quickly took the now luke-warm pot and placed it in the sink to fill with cold water. Then I did what any self-respecting person would do in this situation: I placed the eggs in the freezer to cool faster (because that makes perfect sense at this point). Just for a few minutes. Just to cool them off so I can finish my tuna salad. To pass the time, I sat down to watch an episode of Cheers (we are watching from start to finish, all 275 episodes). When the episode ended, JD mentioned that dinner was ready whenever I was. I offered to get it since I had to finish my tuna salad with the two--EGGS! Seriously?!?!

They were frozen. The bottoms were sucked in and the yolks were glassy. Good thing I really only like the whites, and was able to salvage them for the tuna salad. Oh, I forgot to mention the actual peeling of the eggs: they peeled wonderfully. I do not know where along the way I found the magic answer to my peeling problem, but there it is. Perfectly peeled, salvageable eggs egg whites.

The Great Peanut Butter Cookie Caper

It all started on a rainy day in Bloomington. The boys were brewing pumpkin ale, and I was facing hours of watching a boiling pot of mash. Then it hit me: I could convince my friend Lizzy to bake something. Anything. Turns out I did remember that early morning post about resurrecting my baking blog. Time to knock off some rust!

We set to the kitchen and pulled out everything in the cabinets that could possibly be helpful. We were motivated to bake, but not so motivated that we would consider going to the store for ingredients. It all could have ended there if Lizzy did not discover that we technically had all the ingredients for a peanut butter cookie recipe she found online. I say "technically" because we did not necessarily have the 2 cups of peanut butter needed. Details.

 Perhaps I would have been more suspicious of the flour-less cookie recipe had I not been distractingly dazzled by Lizzy's Kitchenaid mixer. Perhaps I would have stopped and thought about it when the mix was not getting all fluffy as the recipe suggested it should, had I not convinced myself that many of my baking misadventures actually turned into pretty darn good baked goods. In short, I was suffering from envy and pride. Stupid deadly sins.

Whatever it was, by the time I was ready to "roll the dough into a ball" it was painfully clear that a ball was not going to happen. More like a heap of goo. Again I was able to convince myself (and maybe Lizzy, but probably not) that although the so-called dough was not quite perfect, the cookies would most likely taste as they should. After all, we followed a recipe from Real Simple. The entire magazine is devoted to making awesome things simple. It's in the name.

Needless to say, it was almost immediately obvious that these peanut butter cookies were, well, not cookies. I even question whether they were peanut butter. What they definitely were:

1) hard

2) sticky

3) brittle

4) yes, sticky and brittle

5) slightly carmelized

One would think we would stop there, but oh no. We made two more batches! And yes, we hoped that each batch would turn out better than the last. We even switched from wax paper to cooking spray, just to see if perhaps it would make a difference. The only difference is that it was more difficult to pry the sticky brittle brown substance off of the sheet. By the third batch I disregarded the formality of making separate goo mounds and just poured the remaining "dough" into the center of the baking sheet. When you're beat, you're beat.

So what happened, you ask? Well, first of all is the obvious: I was not drinking wine. My only other thought is that there perhaps should have been flour involved. 

Lessons learned:
1) Always drink wine when baking. Always. It helps one think more clearly.
2) Kitchenaid mixers ≠ easy bake oven accessories
3) If you have doubts about something missing in a recipe, follow your gut (although I do not know if I would have had any clue how much flour would have been needed; nor do I know if mine is a gut that should be followed).
4) Sometimes you just have to cut your losses and enjoy the mad scientist results of your baking experiment.

Oh Yeah, This Thing

So, it's 2:30am EST and I cannot sleep. Lying in a lodge bed at Cumberland Falls State Park, I decided to check out my Internet bookmarks. Sometimes you find lost treasures there...like my blog. It turns out that I have not posted anything since I moved to Louisville last June. It is not that I have not baked in that time--I am positive I made lemon bars once, and oh look! I found a picture of a Derby Pie I am pretty sure I baked for my mother's birthday:

It is just that there are a couple of things working against me now:

1) an electric oven/stove (sigh)
2) the absence of Eli
3) my new job keeping me away from home
4) my new co-workers being all "healthy" (where are my St. V's folks when I need them?)
5) a lack of desire to bake for all of the above-stated reasons.

However, after reading through all my old posts amidst sleep deprivation, I have become somewhat nostalgic and therefore am writing this post. There is a part of me that wants to make a bold sweeping promise of a baking resurrection.

I will refrain.

This may very well be the last post written for another year. There is a solid chance I will completely forget about the whole thing tomorrow morning, and during another sleepless night in the future will decide again to venture into my obviously useless Internet bookmarks, where I will see this blog and, annoyed, think to myself, "Ugh. Why does the Internet save everything?"