Week 12 - The chips are down!

What's a contest without chips? And what are chips without Nestle?

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Dear Nestle:

One of the finest moments in the life of this stay-at-home mother was finding a playgroup. Sure, I wanted to give our little cherubs the opportunity to socialize in single syllables, master the art of swiping the good toys with ninja-like skills, and sharing whatever germs they had, but what I really craved was the prospect of talking to other adults. In the unlikely event that my riveting conversation alone may not have been enough to secure my spot at such gatherings, I needed to add some other valuable skill to the mix. Baked goods. I could provide homemade baked goods!

My chocolate chip cookies always got rave reviews from children and adults as well. They seemed to think I had a secret, and I suppose in a way I did. Little did anyone know that they could have been privy to the same information just by grabbing the yellow bag of Nestle semi-sweet morsels. I can barely remember back to the days when I didn't have the recipe for the Original Tollhouse Cookies committed to memory.

Cookies on the counter, dough balls in the refrigerator to be baked up fresh the next day, and dough balls in the freezer for emergencies. For last minute invitations, I was able to cut my necessary lead time down to thirty-five minutes by putting the batter all in a pan for Tollhouse bars. Your chips gave me the ability to waltz into a friend's house with a warm pan of delicious. In fact, that might have been the reason I was invited to begin with, that inability to show up empty-handed. Eyes on the prize, and I got human contact with people over three feet tall.

As my children got older, they were exposed to the wonders of the cookie cake, and I became acquainted with the high prices the supermarkets were charging for such fare. I had semi-sweet chips, a recipe's worth of other ingredients and a round pizza stone. I was a rock star in my own house, and mind, when I pulled those cookie cakes out of the oven. After putting some chocolate frosting around the edge, we had it made...homemade. My son just turned sixteen and still requested cookie cake for his birthday dessert.

Back in the early days of my cookie cake baking, I sometimes forgot if I was supposed to put a full batch of dough on the stone, or just half. I only had to use a whole recipe once to never forget the answer to that question again. Less than halfway into the baking time, I checked to see how things were going. They were going right to the edge. In a matter of minutes, things were going right over the edge! I was stumped as to what to do, as there was soon a ring of fire in the bottom of my oven. The smoke alarms were going off and my daughter was crying. I am not sure if her concern was the noise, the cookie dough flambe, the slightly crazed look on her mother's face, or the potential loss of cookies for snack time. I remember waving the smoke and opening some windows, all the while wondering if I could keep the oven on long enough to cook whatever dough was left on the stone. I had to be able to salvage some of my Tollhouse treat. Certainly I deserved some melty chocolatey goodness after that stress. It was no easy feat to get that masterpiece out of the oven, as there was no edge of the pan free to grab. Trying to get the burnt dough out of the bottom of the oven was just sad.

Time has its way of transforming trying moments into funny memories. My daughter is thirteen now and can make the cookies herself. I think she might have expected a more formal passing of the torch the day I told her the secret to delicious chocolate chip cookies. Instead, I called into the kitchen from the other room "Use the recipe right there on the bag, Sweetie!"

Morsels of thanks,

Andrea

So did they think I was half-baked?

Well, they did write back and sent me some coupons and recipes (perhaps to help prevent any future rings of fire). The coupon is not pictured because, have you been here before? This girl needs cookies! 

TWO POINTS! My current total is 30 POINTS.

Check out the competition this week!