Oops...

by Ilona

Great excitement in the Ilona household today! Bekah and I finally got around to trying out the cookie press we bought at the Pampered Chef party a month ago.

(Note to self: Do NOT take enthusiastic and social teen to party at which one might be tempted to spend outrageous amounts of money on luxury goods. Enthusiastic and social teens are so damned appealing that it is very hard to say "NO. No, we will NOT be purchasing the cookie press at $41.50, and we will even more so NOT be purchasing the $40.00 deep dish pie plate, even if it IS in a very pretty cranberry and even if you DO love pies and even if you WILL make pies yourself -- AND clean up the kitchen, mum, really!!!"

It is very difficult to say NO to all that sweet and sincere enthusiasm without looking like a total wet-blanket drip of a mother in front of a room full of completely besotted adults. "Isn't she cute? My 14-year-old is never so sweet and enthusiastic.")

So we haul the cookie press out from under the counter. We mix up the recipe included with the kit. We ooo and aaaah over all the different shapes.

We learn a bunch of stuff, too. We learn that you need to set the press flush against the cookie sheet. Flush. And press the handle once, and only once. We learned that it is wise to scrape the exterior surface of the disk after every couple of cookies. We learned that if you tip the barrel up, you will get air bubbles in the batter. We learned that when you change disks, you need to tap the barrel to get the dough to settle against the disk again.

We learned so very, very many things!

Then we set the three dozen cookies into the pre-heated oven. And within three minutes, we have learned another, VERY important cookie-press lesson. When you are preparing cookie-press dough, you may not (NOT!) substitute margerine for butter:

Ahem.

Comments

[Laura Benedict]

Ah, but you will have a priceless memory!

(Speaking of no substitutions, at 13, I learned that baking soda is not an appropriate substitute for baking powder in sugar cookies. Yuck!)

[Zayna]

Ewwww, bummer.

[margy]

What does Pampered Chef have for cleaning ovens?

I had a Pampered Chef party here one time and made the mistake of having the kids present. Fortunately, it was a successful party and most of the bazillion things I ordered were hostess gifts. But I DID refuse to get the apple corer-peeler-slicer despite Snooze's big eyes and love of pie- and you know what he did? He was ten I think, and he put the apple corer-peeler-slicer on his Christmas list for Grandma. And he got it.

He's made every apple pie around here ever since.

[Daisy]

Am I the only one who likes the simple things from Pampered Chef? My favorites, absolute favorites, are the spatulas. My teen "borrows" them for fidget tools; we found one in his Civics folder last year.

[suburbancorrespondent]

Hmmm - margarine should have worked...anything that remains solid at the same temp as butter does should be okay...

[Janice]

Oh no, it ran into a puddle?

[Florinda]

Pampered Chef parties are a very dangerous thing. But having said that, they do have certain products that have become essentials in my kitchen - the food chopper, the spatulas (like Daisy), the measuring cups, the Micro-Cookers...see what I mean about them being dangerous? :-)

But the cookies will turn out better next time, I'm sure.

[Lynn K.]

I bought one of the cookie presses a couple years ago, but haven't ever taken it out of the box. Not even sure WHY I bought it. I have an old Super Shooter. Those electric cookie presses. Remember those? They're really fast once you get the hang of it and don't shoot the cookies everywhere : )