Life is like a........cookie?

Cat in the Hat

I made some cookies for a baby shower this weekend.

The dough didn't seem quite the same as it normally does.  It stayed soft even after sitting in the fridge for a few hours.  I wasn't sure why, since I had followed the recipe exactly the same as I always do.

I rolled, cut, and baked them.  When the first batch came out I tried a cookie.  It tasted fine, so on I baked.

The next morning I awoke and went to the store to buy what I needed to frost them, mainly meringue powder.  I went through the check out aisle and realized halfway through ringing up my things I had forgotten the meringue.  DOH!  So, back I went to pick it up.

The Lorax

When I came home I began making the royal icing.  I am not sure what was going on, but I had to keep adding more and more water to get it the right consistency.  Finally it was just right, so I pulled the baked cookies out and began flooding them all with the white frosting.  Two hours later they were all frosted and placed in the oven and microwave to set.....away from little fingers.

Green Eggs and Ham

Four hours later it was time to decorate.  I had picked up food coloring markers at the store and decided I would draw on the decorations this time instead of piping them.  It would save time, my arm, a lot of mess, and it would look more like a storybook picture.

When I pulled the cookies out some of them had darkened around the edges ( you can really see it on the goat cookie).  Strange.  I showed my husband.  He and I both agreed that it looked like an aged book, a trade secret we laughed.

I began drawing the pictures on and all went well.  I only messed up a couple of them, but I had made extra cookies for that.  One truffula tree broke, but I was able to glue it back together with icing and move on.  30 something cookies later I decided I was done and very happy with the results.  I let the markers set to be sure they were good and dry and then I bagged them up.

One fish, two fish.....

One poor cookie broke as it went in (that picky yellow furred eater up above).  It would just have to stay broken.  I couldn't replace it and it still looked okay in the bag.  I carefully laid each cookie in a container by grouping and then put paper towels in to fill up the spaces between them, so they would not get jostled in transit.

I could breathe a sigh of relief. They were finished and I was happy with how they looked.


Then............I looked at them hours later.  The markers were bleeding.  My beautiful cookies now had red splotches on them.  There was no time to redo them and nothing I could do to fix them.  Frustrated doesn't begin to express how I felt (still feel) about that!

My husband grabbed a leftover cookie and said, "Well honey, they still taste good!"

stinkin' splotches!

And isn't that just like life.  You work hard, you overlook the unexpected and work through the unexplained, and you make it beautiful and then splotches happen.  Splotches!  But in the end, after all is said and done, life is still good and you can still see the beauty behind the splotches.


*This story is one of the very many reasons that I would never go into a cookie making business.  Too much stress!*