(no subject)

[which_chick]

You know how survivors of trauma sometimes have no memory of the trauma? Apparently that's what happened with my memory of how to make the damn spice cookies. I suck. Here are some helpful pointers I picked back up today in my trial by fire.

1. Divide the dough into eight patties, not four. Four is divided enough for sand tarts which are (get this) a MORE PLEASANT dough to work with. You need eight patties for this stuff.
   
2. Molasses based doughs are sticky. Chilling them does not make them markedly less sticky. The only thing that can save you is lots and lots of flour. If you don't use enough flour, the dough will...
   
   • Stick to the rolling pin in small lumps
   • Stick to the table surface and refuse to roll thinner
   • Stick to the table surface so that you have OVAL, non-round cookies because you squashed the little fuckers trying to unstick them from the table surface. (If you use your fingers to massage the cookies back into a round shape, I'll be able to tell.)
   • Stick to the rolling pin in huge lumps that tear out the MIDDLE of the dough
   
   
3. If you have mastered the rolling part and have beautiful, thin round cookies because you judiciously used flour to save your ass, the cookies burn even faster than sand tarts.

*sigh*

On the plus side, if you roll the dough thinner, you get more cookies so it's okay if you fuck some of them up. About half of the ones I did came out perfect. The other half are mute testament to me forgetting how to do these since it's been at least five years since I made the little fuckers. Fortunately, even the mistakes are pretty edible. I'm not incompetent enough to destroy a sheet of cookies.

Here is a top view of good, bad, and ugly. Side view, too.