Today, I finally branced out from bread machine baking to some of the real stuff, and I am quite proud of that, even though it did not turn out so well.
It all started with my deciding I was too bored to sit in front of computer any more and that the solution was baking. So I decided to look for a good Peanut Butter Cookie recipe, those being a favorite of mine since they were one of the very first things I learned how make when I taught myself to bake.
So I Googled it, and the first recipes was supposedly the “Ultimate” peanut butter cookie recipe, but it require vanilla and I do not have any yet. Then the second recipe asked for 2 eggs, and I only had one.
But then I came across this third recipe, and I just knew I had to try it.
I mean, here it the entire thing :
1 cup Kraft Smooth Peanut Butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 eggHEAT oven to 325°F.
MIX all ingredients with large spoon until well blended.
ROLL into 24 balls; place, 4 inches apart, on baking sheets. Flatten with fork.
BAKE 20 min. or until lightly browned. (Do not overbake.) Cool 5 min. on baking sheets; transfer to wire racks. Cool completely.
That is it, that is the entire recipe. And what really gets me is that there are only three ingredients : peanut butter, sugar (Splenda), and an egg.
I just looked and looked at the recipe, unable to believe that somethuing that simple could produce anything resembling my beloved peanut butter cooks of days gone by.
And yet, there it was on the official recipe site of Kraft Foods, a brand that I have trusted ever since I was a little kid. And surely Kraft, big fancy corporation that is is, would not have a recipe that was total shite on its website, at least, not for very long.
So I was in tense inner conflict, and clearly, there was only one way to resolve it.
Make the darn things!
SO I did. And they did turn out to be something like cookies. I say ‘something like’, because alas, I over-baked them. Cookies can be tricky things with the timing, and I foolishly decided, after looking in at the ten minute mark and seeing they were not done yet, to “give them another five minutes”. Five minutes later I return, and they are significantly overdone.
Not burned, thank goodness, but seconds away from it, and definitely a few shades past the desired “golden brown” that all us baked crave.
But the color is not the real problem, it is the dryness. Those are some bone dry cookie-like objects that I made, and hence, they are kind of unpleasant to eat. I likely will eat some more of them, out of sheer stubbornness if nothing else, but then I will likely put the rest down the Reject Hatch (AKA the kitchen garbage) and try again when I get more eggs.
The recipe obviously works. I just need to fine-tune the timing a tad. Next time, twelve minutes. That should produce better results.
Results with actual moisture in them! Word.
And think about it, a peanut butter cookie recipe so simple I could memorize it. I would love to add that to my back of tricks. Imagine being someplace and the kids are restless and you can just say “Hey kids, let’s make peanut butter cookies!” and suddenly you are Such A Cool Guy.
I truly have fantasies like that.
And speaking of fantasy, I came across something today that I just have to share with you, because as a lifelong connoisseur of the truly bad, I know a gem when I see one, and with this thing, I think I may have hit the motherlode.
Now in the realm of appreciation of the truly bad, there are the movies which are enjoyably bad. These people were sincerely trying to make something good, and the result is hilariously, even adorably inept. These are the real treasures of our kind of appreciation.
And then there are movies which are just plain bad. They are unwatchably bad. They are so boring, so incompetent, so deep down awful that you cannot even enjoy them ironically. They just suck,
Then, every once in a while, there is something so thoroughly awful that is you cannot really enjoy it ironically, but that nevertheless casts a sort of mesmerizing spell over you because you cannot believe that something this bad actually exists.
And with that in mind, I hereby introduce you to the Worst Thing on the Internet.
You have been warned!
Everything about this is atrocious. The acting, the art, the animation, the voiceover… everything. I would love to be able to pat it on the back for its good intentions, but I cannot. I am too numb.
As a side note, there are a surprising number of videos on the Internet with people in them (usually narrating) who sounds pretty much exactly like that guy. I have begone to think of it as the Apserger’s Anarak Accent. It really makes me wonder how the UK can have such rich palette of marvelous accents, and yet somehow, a certain sort of person always ends up sounding up more or less the same.
I am sure is is somehow related to how the “gay accent” occurs spontaneously in millions of homosexuals who have no exposure to gay culture or each other.
Anyhow, see if you can make it through the whole video. I have only made it three fifths of the way through so far. I can only take it in small doses.
And just remember that truly horrible art not only serves to amuse and entertain us jaded post-modern meta-media analysis types.
It also serves to reassure us that nothing we do could ever possibly suck that bad.
Well, that is all for tonight. I am glad I am baking, proper baking, again. Tomorrow I think I shall make me some biscuits.
More bulletins as events warrant.