Snicker doodle

For the most part, I’ve always eschewed the strictures of recipes – lists and instructions, tish! – for a more organic apporoach to cooking. I’ve always favoured the finer measures of taste or smell over the crude teaspoon or, dare I speak it’s name, the millilitre. That’s is, until recently, when I started baking. On the face of it, baking is more science than art. Woe betide those who wield a rolling-pin in anger, but lack skill with the measuring cup – theirs is the way of tooth-shattering breads and indigestable pizza doughs. It’s true that, at times, my science has suffered because I’ve lacked the precision that biochemistry requires; and I’ve found baking to be a similarly exacting taskmaster. Lately, however, I’ve come to enjoy the delicate tinkering and tuning each recipe requires to be it’s best. And far from restricting one’s creative side, I’ve found that baking provides plenty of opportunities for flair and expression, with seasoning and presentation, for example.

So, this may go some way to explaining why I’m making sugar cookies. Some way, but it doesn’t really get to the bottom of it, the nub of the issue. No, to plumb those depths, we’d have to explore the realm of my unfinished thesis, and all the anxiety, bad grammar and procrastination that entails. No, far better to simply say, “I am making sugar cookies - goddammit" and leave it at that. Now, the keen-eyed readers will have noticed that the post is entitled snicker doodle, and the British readers will be wanting me to get on and explain what that means. Well, snicker doodles represent the snow-capped summit of the sugar cookie kingdom, and it is precisely these sweet and cinamony delights that I’m preparing today.


- Mr. Ed