I used to make over 1,000 cookies each year, giving them as holiday gifts. After my vision loss, it became very difficult to tell if the cookies were done in the oven. My husband would be glad to help, but he is color blind and struggles with the same issue, as far as determining if a cookie has been baked long enough. We have tried in the past, but he and I have a very distinct difference of opinion as to the definition of “burnt.” I found most of the cookies we made then incredibly chargrilled.
I had a hankering for cookies in the new year. A “family meeting” was held where an agreement was reached by all parties (Mister Rain and me, Piper was Out Of Office) to work together to try baking cookies again.
I have a theory that if the batter tastes good, the finished cookies will too. I made a double batch of the chocolate chip cookie recipe, then refrigerated the dough overnight. The next day, after the batter had warmed up a bit, I began to place the dough onto cookie trays. Although my cookies usually come out with a high yum factor, whether they will be flat or raised is always an unknown, even though I use the same recipe every time, following it to the teaspoon. Because of this, I dropped a small amount of batter for each cookie. If they decided to flatten out, they would not run into each other.
While I filled six cookie trays with dough to get ahead a in the assembly line, my husband manned the oven, baking two trays at a time. When he took the first trays out, I asked, “How do they look?”
The hesitation was unmistakable. “They look like nuggets.”
What the morsel was he talking about? Getting up from the kitchen table where I had been working, I approached the two trays of completed cookies on the counter. They had not spread, instead coming out as bite-size . . . well . . . nuggets. If the house wasn’t filled with the mouth watering aroma of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, you could have handed me a cookie and told me it was from Chick-fil-A and I would have believed you.
Continuing on yielded us a little over 100 cookies. I let Mister Rain try one first, he declared it a success. I tried one later, pleasantly surprised that they tasted just like I remembered.
As with all things, you cannot judge a cookie by what it looks like, a cliché that I can assure is true. Not only due to the fact that I am visually impaired and, therefore, how something appears is the last determining factor for me in any situation, but because I have done the work, collecting data for decades. My mom has been gone for 13 years yet I can still hear her yelling at me that I will get sick if I keep eating the batter. All in the name of science, and the perfect cookie nugget.
#sisterrain #alittlesightalotofheart #legallyblindwriter #blindnessisaspectrum #blind #legallyblind #lowvision #visuallyimpaired #opticneuropathy #visionloss
