Baking Our Way Through January

In the cooking world, to julienne is to take a fat, stumpy vegetable and to cut it into thin, long strips in preparation for it to be made into something far more wonderful. The month of January is not unlike an over grown tuber, plucked from the earth in winter, dull and knotted, without even a coat of grocery store polish to recommend itself to consumers. But fear not you month of doldrums and dreariness! We have come to rescue you from your short, dark days, freezing temperatures, and all around sluggishness. We are armed with pastry cutters to liberate you from the defeatist attitude that you must be suffered through until springtime berries return!

Thanks to our recent gifts of The Joy of Cooking and and Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and a long-held idea of baking through January during a free J-term we have started this blog to save all seasonally-depressed people with delicious baked treats, fresh ideas and a warm bowl of lentil stew.

Day 1: The Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie

Gillian has perfected the most beautiful chocolate chip recipe. Just for fun, today, we are baking these delicious cookies on three different surfaces. (p.s. our extensive scientific research proves the success of cookies depends on the amount of time you chill the dough, up to 24 hours)

1: Air-bake cookie sheet

2: Regular cookie sheet

3: Regular cookie sheet + silicone baking mat

Results: The air-bake cookie sheet definitely produced the evenly baked cookie, with the silicone baking mat coming in for a close second. The regular baking sheet was just not quite up to 'barr'.

xoxo!

you know you love us!

g&k