Sometimes Looks Matter

Results of the entirely unscientific poll are in: people like the Chocolate Chocolate Chip Amish Friendship - what I described in a previous entry as "sin without the redemption." While there remain a few purists who prefer the plain Amish Friendship, the overwhelming response was, I liked the one with the chips. In other words, not only do the masses prefer sin, they like it to be studded with little chips of solid sin.

With Christmas looming near, I took to the kitchen yesterday armed with a 24-egg-count carton of Costco eggs. I baked from morning until quite past night (given that it's getting dark around here before 4pm). My Sunday passed in a blur of baking, punctuated by a little bit of living.

As it always goes for me in the kitchen, there were irregularities. For those who have been gifted the results of my Sunday efforts, fear not - these irregularities were merely cosmetic. But in baking, cosmetic irregularities are often noticed. I recall that I once made wonderful mini-cheesecakes to take to a law school class (why I am always toting desserts to inappropriate places, I do not know), but had made a poor choice in transport tupperware. The result: the mini-cheesecakes were squished, intertwined with their fruit toppings. I offered one to a classmate with the disclaimer, "They look bad but they are delicious."

He gave them one look and said to me, "Madwoman, sometimes looks matter."

I have never forgotten those words.

Sometimes looks matter.

I heard these words again after my first batch of plain Amish Friendship, which I can only describe with two words -

squashed shoe:



My baking had been proceeding all too normally when I realized at the end of the bake time that I had neglected to sprinkle the cinnamon sugar on top of the loaves. Not a huge deal, but the bread is rather plain without the delightful sugary and crispy crust. Since the eight plain loaves were just about done baking, I knew the tops would be too dry at this point for the cinnamon sugar to adhere. So I did what any Madwoman would do.

I spritzed the tops of the loaves.

Let it be said that spritzing water while baking has many benefits. It creates steam in the oven, making heat distribute more quickly, and it helps keep the moisture level up. I recommend it while baking bread, for example. But what else should be said is that one should probably never spritz directly onto the rising surface of a baked good.

The cinnamon sugar stuck really well, but that brief moment of satisfaction dissipated quickly when the loaf started to deflate from the inside, no doubt confused and bogged down by the new and sudden moisture up top. As the loaves cooled, the situation only got worse until all the loaves reached the Squashed Shoe Stage. I suddenly had eight squashed shoes where eight loaves of Vanilla Amish Friendship had been before.

But sometimes catastrophe is the mother of invention. I selected two shoes that seemed to make a good pair, slathered a layer of Nutella between them for adhesion, and voila - Amish Friendship with Hazelnut Filling. Whether this tactic worked or not will be the subject of yet another very unscientific poll.

Stay tuned and find out whether Nutella can bridge The Gap Between Sin and Redemption.