Elementary Chef

I’m a frequent watcher of TV cooking shows. I found out the hard way that sometimes details get lost in the translation; for instance the amount of something you end up with when a making a recipe in the real world.

I had a recipe for Triple Chocolate Cookies. They were chocolate cookies using both baking chocolate and cocoa with chocolate chips. I watched Marcel DeSaulnier on TV make them, and thought they were perfect to send to some friends, with enough left over for us, too.

To be on the safe side, I doubled the recipe.

I can’t tell you why I didn’t notice that this recipe would contain well over two pounds of chocolate when I was done. I was too busy checking the dollar store and my grocery store for the best deal. Early Saturday afternoon, I started mixing. I realized the bowl I was using wasn’t going to be quite big enough, so I transferred the batter to the biggest bowl I had. The hand mixer I was using started to smoke, because the heavy batter was too much for it – and I hadn’t even added the chips yet!

I got out a big, two-foot-long, metal spoon left over from my days as a banquet chef, and holding my forearm over the edge of the bowl to keep the batter from dripping out, folded in the two big bags of chocolate chips. Although I had chocolate cookie batter all over both arms, and I was trying frantically to wipe up the drips on the floor before the dogs could get to them, my problems had just begun.

I started out making individual cookies, but I soon realized I’d be in the kitchen all night at that rate. I filled up every baking pan I had with batter, and by the time I was done, every surface in the kitchen and living room in my small house was full of cooling, giant cookies in a variety of shapes. We’d just been grocery shopping, so the freezer was full, and there was no place to keep them. The box of cookies I usually mailed to my friends would hardly make a dent in the sheer mass of baked goods.

The aroma of chocolate permeated every room of the house and wafted outside. It was, in fact, the first thing my husband noticed when he came home from work that day.

What to do with all those cookies?

Well, we did what any other patriotic American couple would do – we called in the Marines.

I forget now how we packed them up, but pack them up we did. Paul turned right around and went back to work at MCAS_Yuma, where he teaches Marines to fix their cars. I’m sure many of our boys and girls in uniform had Triple-Threat chocolate cookies that night. ;>)

We’ve re-named the recipe, by the way. In the military style of describing things, they are now Cookies, Chocolate, Chocolate, Chocolate. In the Battalion Batch and Platoon Batch.

The moral of the story is that even the most experienced cook can be dense sometimes.