“Remoted” Workday 188 / Day 281 (Tuesday)

The Christmas cookie baking commenced after work. Instead of one of the tried and true recipes that are baked once a year for what feels like forever and are starting to become boring, I decided to try something new this year. Someone posted a recipe for Finnish “S” cookies in the Facebook Finnish Cooking Group and it looked promising. It was mentioned in the group that they are shaped into the letter S for Suomi, the Finnish word for Finland.

It had all the indications of a successful bake. The ingredients are basic and all are on hand. The bake time is 12 minutes, which was considered a plus. The posted recipe didn’t reference mixer speed for the “mix” step so I did it by hand, first with a spoon, then literally with my hands because I am old school like that and also too lazy to pull out the hand mixer. No, I don’t have a beautiful Kitchen Aid mixer, nor the space to keep one.

Looked okay on the sheet.

The dough kept crumbling and it was hard to roll into the designated “log.” It seemed I might have needed the speed and power of the mixer after all. The description of rolling into a log seemed more like it should be a rope based on the photo posted with the recipe. I made a log and rolled it in cinnamon sugar as directed, then I cut it into chunks and hand rolled smaller ropes in cinnamon sugar to match the cookie size in the picture. The dough was really hard to shape into the “S” shape and kept cracking. 

After 1.5 hours of mixing and massaging and fighting the dough into the prescribed shape, I was wishing I had just made my shortbread recipe. The recipe didn’t specify shiny or dark baking sheet and didn’t reference greasing the pan or using parchment, so I chose the shiny sheet for its size. Because the recipe requires an entire stick of butter, I didn’t grease the sheet. 

Some of the casualties.

After baking for the designated 12 minutes at 400 degrees, the S cookies were removed from the oven and allowed to cool for a few minutes before removing to a cooling rack. Most broke upon removal. Out of 30 cookies, seven made it onto the cooling rack without breaking. The rest are broken chunks and dry crumbs. 

Even worse than a bunch of broken cookies, these cookies taste awful, although awful implies there is an actual flavor. These are bland. Mostly flavor free. And now I’m down a stick of butter from an already limited supply. What a colossal cookie failure. 

The oven is now off and the apron hung up. I don’t have it in me to try another recipe tonight. In addition to blowing off almost everything else that bears a resemblance to an actual life over the past nine months, Christmas cookies may be just the latest in a long string of casualties.