Christmas Eve, as I wrote before, was rainy and dreary and objectively uneventful, but in retrospect, it was perfect.
I'd endeavored to make cookies for Christmas -- an American tradition I was just missing too much. But, as with most things on this island, it wasn't without its own unique set of challenges.
Because there's no such thing as brown sugar here, I used cane sugar -- which is rough and coarse and not the same thing at all. The butter is different, too (saltier, somehow, even the unsalted kind) and, as chocolate chips are a luxury item here, I had to break up chocolate bars by hand.
Also, my oven is gas, the kind you have to light with a match, and there are no temperature markings, just Max and levels one through six. You kind of just have to guess where to turn the dial, and then watch your stuff like a hawk.
I suppose the worst problem is that there are no English-system measuring tools. But I did learn, from a quick Google search, that there are forty-eight American teaspoons in an American cup. And so what did I do? I measured out, in increments of twelve, spoonfuls of water into one of my drinking glasses. Then I used my eyeliner to mark off the right spots. Is that legit? Who knows. But it seemed to work, sort of.
Precision at its finest, y'all.Janice helped me measure the ingredients and make the dough. It was nice to have a helping hand. The girls really liked them (and ate a good chunk of my supply). My landlady thought they were too sweet, but to sugar-loving twelve-year-olds, I suppose, they're the perfect friandise.
Here's a picture that Janice took of me with the dough.
Here's the finished product. Not exactly right, of course, but the fact that they even resemble something like a cookie proves once and for all that the Nestle Tollhouse recipe is, actually, one hundred percent impossible to screw up. Thank you, Ruth Wakefield, for inventing this gourmet dessert, but most of all, thank you, America.
