Want a cookie? Too bad.

Let me just make a confession.


I can't bake a cookie to save my life.

No. I'm not kidding. If someone had a gun in my face and demanded cookies, I'd be dead.


Or I'd make the cookies and then the gunman would be dead from eating them.


Now, this is something that really, really irks me.



Ask me to bake a pie with a perfectly flaked crust- no problem!

You need chocolate cake with raspberry filling? I'm on it.

How about a seven layer fruit trifle with angel food cake and whipped topping for dessert.? Oh yes. I can handle that.

Cookies? You asked for cookies? Sorry, Charlie.

Chocolate Chip? Nope

Oatmeal Raisin? Nuh uh

Sugar with frosting? How about just the frosting?


I have no idea why my cookies come out hard as rock, or mushy inside, or flat, or tasting like asparagus. They just do.

There is a cookie committee out there somewhere that has it out for me.

My lack of cookie baking skills has been a huge blow to my self esteem. I mean, one day I'll be a mother (I hope) and my poor children are going to come home from school to find a bowl of peach cobbler on the table for them, rather than a plate full of warm, chewy cookies and a glass of milk.


Now, that's just not right!

So I practice and practice and practice. I measure carefully and meticulously. I'm hopeful while they bake. The timer dings and I pull them out. Disaster. They've all morphed into one monster of a cookie that tastes a little like onions (how did that happen? I still don't know.)

So I give up measuring meticulously and just randomly throw ingredients in. I'm no longer hopeful but I'm not going to let my self confidence be completely shattered just yet. Again, massive cookie fail.

So I adjust the time and temperature and all sorts of things. My mom once told me that all I needed to do was get used to my oven. I guess ovens have personalities of sorts and some have hotter personalities than others.

I think mine just plain hates me.


Now, before you claim that you've had absolutely divine cookies that came from my kitchen, le me make another confession.


I had help.

That's right, I had a cookie babysitter.

Every single time I made cookies as a gift for someone else, I needed to call a friend to come over and hold my hand.


At one point I convinced my mother to stand next to me the entire time I assembled the cookie dough and baked them. What do you know. They came out better than Betty Crocker could have made them. Masterpieces, I tell you!

So that's when I discovered that if I was to bake cookies, I needed a cookie babysitter.

After several failed cookie attempts that ended in my gushing of tears and claiming I was going to be the worst housewife/mother in the world, Andy took the role of cookie babysitter.

It worked for awhile, but he has since taken the role of the sole, one and only, cookie baker in our family.

And you know what? I'm okay with that.

So I can't bake a cookie. I can make a cheesecake that would knock your socks off and lemon bars that will make you cry with delight.

As long as someone in our family has the ability to put that plate of cookies on the table every afternoon, then I'm good with that.