Blogger’s Quest for Domestic Goddess Status Continues. June 5, 2007

I’ve taken to baking. Enthusiastically.
 
This from a girl who, just a few short years ago, called her parents to ask them how to peel a cucumber. True story.   
 
I don’t know what it is. Well, I know what it is: hi, sweet, delicious edible things, welcome to my mouth and my thighs! I love you! 
 
But it’s also the process. It’s the mixing and the sifting and the spooning. It allows me to focus, a welcome respite from spending all day feeling like I can’t focus because there is too damn much to focus on. Some mornings, I just sit at my desk, paralyzed by what I have to do. I’ve always been a pretty darn good multi-tasker (*brushes shoulders off*), but this latest project has me drowning in a sea of things I have to do plus things my boss has to do but dumps on me. Most days, I tread water. 
 
Baking is different. There’s a task at hand. You do one thing and then you do another thing and soon enough, you have created something. There is something to show for all of your hard work. Something delicious. 
 
Speaking of, this past weekend I made Czechoslovakian cookies. I guess now they should be called “Czech Republic/Slovakia cookies” or we could just go with the easy, apt “MOST DELICIOUS COOKIES IN THE WHOLE DAMN WORLD.” 
 
I’m a sucker for anything that requires a layer of jam. Combine jam with anything remotely shortbread-y and you’ve got yourself an enthusiastic devotee.  
 
The cookies were amazingly simple to bake. In fact, the hardest part was not pulling them out of the oven early and shoving them into my mouth while I watched a DVR-ed Blue Crush. Because there’s nothing like, oh, cookies to make you feel better about not having Kate Bosworth’s body (her body in Blue Crush! Not her current Malnourishment Postergirl form.)  

There isn’t really a point to this post. For that I apologize. I’m just sitting here at my desk (again, paralyzed! Too much to do! Only so many hours in one day! God, can you look into that? Thanks), dreaming of the cookies and what it’s going to be like to sink my greedy teeth into them when I get home this evening. This evening, after I finish up work and take a damn spinning class because baking - while lovely - requires things like butter and flour and cups and cups of sugar. And while my tastebuds may do a little dance at the aforementioned ingredients, my ass is over here, arms crossed, scowling, all “look, you BERATE ME every day and yet there you are, shoveling shit into your mouth. And it may go into your mouth, but GUESS WHERE IT ENDS UP BITCH. GET ON THE DAMN BIKE AND GIVE ME SOMETHING TO WORK WITH.” 
 
And, as I’ve realized, I must obey the ass. Spinning THEN cookies it is.
 
 UPDATED TO INCLUDE THE RECIPE:
 
Ingredients:
 
2 sticks of butter, room temperature
 
1 cup of sugar
 
2 cups all-purpose flour
 
2 egg yolks
 
1/2 cup jam (strawberry, rasperry, blueberry, cherry…I used strawberry rhubarb and I used more than 1/2 cup)
 
1 cup walnuts, chopped (chopped pecans can also be substituted)
 
Directions:
 
Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees.
 
Cream butter, gradually adding sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg yolks one at a time, blend well. Slowly add flour and then fold in chopped nuts. Spread half of dough into greased 8×8 pan.
 
Spread the bottom layer of dough with jam and then cover with remaining dough.
 
Bake for 1 hour. Cool completely before cutting into bars or squares.
 
Try and resist eating the entire pan.