In the Kitchen: A Cookie Miracle!

I had tried everything ... different butter, different eggs ... I had even brought Parkay from home to try to make a good cookie in Madrid, and none of them ever worked out. Finally, after reading the blog A Merrier World and learning that flour in the European Community does not go through one of the bleaching treatments as it does in the U.S., which alters its effects in baking, I asked Angela to bring me some flour when she came to visit to test it out. This way I could narrow down the variables and see if it really was the flour or if I had to keep experimenting.

Turns out, it was the flour! I also think Angela was my angel of luck and contributed to the success. I told her that every time I want to make cookies, she would have to come help :) I am not going to lie, though, there were moments of doubt.

First, Angela agreed that the butter looked especially oily compared to what we are used to. Then when we added the eggs, the dough started to look more like cake batter than dough. Angela never lost hope. As we added the flour, things started to take shape (never better said!) Then we mixed in the chocolate chips by hand like mom does and started to drop them on the tray. We kept a close eye on them in the oven and when it came time to take them out, they looked great ... and tasted even better! They were delicious right out of the oven. But the next day, you could taste the butter more than the ones from home but they were still good. Unfortunately, we didn´t have tall glass of cold American milk to wash them down.

Now, I have to ration a 5 lb bag of flour until Christmas. In the mean time, I am going to experiment to try to make Kate Flour and see if I can do it. I mentioned in an earlier post that an amazing woman in the UK was determined to continue baking American desserts using the ingredients she could find locally and ended up developing Kate Flour - a flour, when heated, takes on the same characteristics of flour found in the U.S. I will let you know how it goes!

I would like to especially thank Angela for all of her help. If it wasn´t for her, I would´ve never known if the problem was the ingredients or the cook. Also, she was so kind to bring me a box, literally, full of kitchen things. Her suitcase exceeded the weight limit at the airport and she had to empty all of my kitchen things into a box and check it. She is too good to me!