I’d been trying to document the inner journey from catering pastry chef to normal person, only I got a little behind. I’m dealing with the death of my father and a confusing estate.
It’s hard to explain how much the pastry chef role was part of me. So when we needed cookies at home, I began experimenting with something I'd ben wanting to try at work. I had this wonderful salted caramel icing recipe that would knock your socks off, and I wanted to make a cookie that tasted like it. So I plotted out an experiment like I would have done at work.
The first round mostly tasted like a sweet chocolate chip cookie. So I wrote down exactly what I had done, and planned changes for the next round. And did nothing. Had this been work, I would have given the staff the first batch, then dived right into the second. Here at home, this was my own butter, my chocolate chips, and they were not for throwing away. So I never tried round two until we needed cookies again.
Those still didn’t really sing caramel. We we were out of cookies a week later, I tried something that didn’t work at all. It may have worked in large amounts on a gas stove. Home cooking is different. So I made oatmeal raisin cookies. Enough time had passed that I knew I wasn’t showing the new cookie off to the boss, because she wasn’t my boss anymore and it wasn’t me anymore. We enjoyed the old fashioned treat.
When those were gone, I made Oreos with caramel icing in the middle, because we were going to Florida to start packing up my parents’ house and I wanted to share them with family. I have since fixed the caramel chocolate chip cookies. They are decent, but they aren’t that incredible icing. More than that, I have mellowed. I’ve let go of the drive to push the envelope. It’s okay to know I left the catering company an amazing icing, and to enjoy my skills just for us. I can stop. Our current cookies are peanut butter chocolate chip. It’s a recipe from the Hyphen, the coffeehouse we owned back before I became the pastry chef striving to excel, looking to rock the dessert world. Back when a good cookie and happy customers was enough.
I still sometimes miss making 120 biscuits, six dozen cookies, little intense chocolates with ganache rosettes, etc. But real life doesn’t call for orange crème anglaise. It was huge, it was an accomplishment. Time for something new.
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