So, this past weekend I baked cookies.
This wouldn’t normally be that big of a deal, but my six-year-old son, Costello*, desperately wanted to make sugar cookies using our snowman and candy cane cookie cutters. Seeing as how I’d never made cookies using the cookie cutters (yeah, I know — Mother of the Year), this briefly threw me for a loop. But I figured, “Hey, how hard can it be?” I mean, it wasn’t like I was even making the cookies from scratch; I had pre-packaged, refrigerated sugar cookie dough, for crying out loud! All I had to do was roll it out and cut out the shapes.
Easy peasy.
It all started out well enough. We had a few incidents with the cookie dough sticking, but aside from one snowman who looked like he’d been dropped into a vat of toxic waste, the cookies were adorable. As I gazed lovingly at my baking sheet, the rows of snowmen and candy canes arranged with almost mathematical precision, I had visions of my little dough shapes becoming perfect cookies that I would then decorate and let my sons distribute to their teachers and friends while they beamed with pride at the creative genius of their mother. And so, grinning from ear-to-ear and feeling quite pleased with myself, I put the cookies in the oven.
And that’s when everything went to hell.
A few minutes into things, I happened to peek through the oven door and saw these puffy, mutant monsters where my adorable creations had been. As they continued to bake, I watched in dismay as they morphed into something completely unrecognizable. By the time I pulled them out of the oven, they looked more like amoebae than snowmen and candy canes.
The cookies looked so awful, in fact, that when I set them out to cool, my eleven-year-old son, Professor*, patted me on the shoulder with a sigh and said, “Maybe you should just give up, Mom.”
“No way!” I insisted. “I can salvage them. I can just shape them a little with the icing . . .”
Sigh.
Well, apparently, my decorating skills rival my baking skills. At one point Costello came over to the table while I was decorating and said, “Mom. . . why does your snowman have nipples?”
“What?!?” I cried, horrified. “What are you talking about? My snowman doesn’t have nipples!”
Laughing, he pointed to the cookie in question. “Yes, he does! Look — nipples!”
“Those are mittens!” I insisted.
He didn’t believe me. “Dad; Brother! Come here! Look — Mom’s snowman has nipples!”
“Oh, my gawd,” I groaned. “They’re mittens. Mit-tens!”
They all cracked up, of course, and teased me mercilessly. But, honestly, after they pointed it out, the mittens really did kinda look like nipples. And so instead of making gorgeous Christmas cookies my sons could brag about as I’d hoped, it seems I had effectively become a pioneer in amoeba cookie porn.
Awesome.
(Perhaps next time I should just stick with chocolate chip . . .)
*Not their real names. 😉
Cookie porn? You never know. It might catch on!
Bah,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha! Thanks for the laugh! You get an A for effort though…or A for ameoba. ; ) Merry Christmas!
Oh, Kate. Those best laid plans, huh? I’m reading this and laughing and dreading tomorrow when my niece comes over with her little ones to bake cookies with me. I know from past experience that we’ll have at least one huge disaster. But I will NOT put nipples on my snowmen. I have now been forewarned! 🙂 Merry Christmas.
Kate,
LOL…and the pic is priceless 🙂
Already know from RED what a quirky sense of humor you have–but this is HUGE SMILES all the way. Love it!
Happy holidays. And stay away from the oven 🙂
Diane
Hilarious! I’m right there with you, babe. I can’t cook or bake, but the one advantage to that is, I get taken out to dinner a lot. (Crazy like a fox, I say.) LOL
LOL! Too funny! We made the snowmen cookies with the mini jawbreaker candies in the kit. I guess our Christmas greeting to friends and family with those cookies was, ‘Merry Christmas! This year, I’m giving you the gift of a visit to the dentist.’
Awful idea. Funny now but not when you bite into one for the first time LOL.
‘amoeba cookie porn’… AWESOME! 🙂
And as far as I’m concerned, you do deserve the mom of the year award, just for this attempt alone. And now your kids have a story to tell around the Christmas dinner table for years to come. This is what memories are made from…
I’d even venture to say that the scarf looks like some weird harness that might be used for… never mind, let’s not go there! Very funny, Kate.
That is the most interesting sugar cookie I think I’ve ever seen – and yep – those do look like nipples, not mittens – but at least you tried – I won’t even attempt sugar cookes:)
Merry Christmas to you and your family!
My favorite line? “And that’s when everything went to hell.” LMAO!!!
@Cheryl – LOL! Maybe so. But I don’t know if I want to be responsible for that trend! 😉
@Tonya – Thanks! I tried. The rest of the cookies weren’t much better, but at least they weren’t sporting ta-tas. 😉
@Lynnette – I hope your cookies turn out well! Enjoy the time with your niece!
@Diane – Thanks! I’m glad you enjoyed RED. 🙂 And, luckily, I’m a pretty good cook, generally speaking. But baking is obviously not my forte!
@Ashlyn – I definitely like that plan! 😀
@Sonya – Oh no!! I’ve never tried cookies with jawbreakers. And that’s probably a good thing. 😉
@Jen – Aww–Thanks, hon! Some of my favorite memories are those kooky moments with my mom and sisters. I imagine this story will be added to our family lore. 😉
@Kate M. – LOL!! Thanks, hon! 🙂
@Jen T. – Not one of my finer moments, that’s for sure! Merry Christmas to you, too! 🙂
@Cecy – Thanks, sweetums!! Glad we could laugh together over this one! 😀
Oh, I love them, nipples and all!
O.M.Gee! I laughed out loud. It seems you and I have the same inept baking skills. But, holy crap, this was hysterical. Thanks for the giggles.
@Liz – Thanks!!
@Susan – Glad I’m not the only one who struggles with baking! 😉
Hilarious! Thanks for the laugh. 🙂
Thanks, I needed that laugh today! Great post.
LOL! Oh no! Yep, been there. I have horrible luck with cookies of the cutter variety too. 🙂