Mad Midnight Cookie Capers

My apologies for the lack of posts over the last few days. I was on a business trip for most of this past week. I was away for about 140 hours or so, give and take a few hours. But over 55 of those hours were spent stuck in gloriously unexciting airplane cabins, in some wonderfully boring airport lounge, or in exhilaratingly slow-moving security lines. That accounted for nearly 40% of the trip. And the rest of the 85 hours? Well, I lost quite a few hours crossing the International Dateline. And I spent the rest of the time in stuffy hotel function rooms that were too crowded, elegant meeting rooms that all looked like each other, and fluorescent-lit offices that all looked grey. Then there was the small matter of giving in to the insistent demands of my severely sleep-deprived and time-zone-confused body for some rest. Food-wise, I got to eat airplane food, hotel food, more hotel food, and then more airplane food. Boy! Did I have an exciting trip!

And of course, all this was made totally bearable by the thought that I was merely in one of the most exciting cities in the world – New York. Urggh! Yup, that’s a good word. Urggh! It has been a few years since my last trip to the Big Apple. And that’s how I “wasted” my trip. I was hoping to have time to say “hi” to a New Yorker food-blogging friend. I had also so desperately wanted to at least pop into Williams & Sonoma and NY Cake Supplies (which Deb had mentioned before and from where I was hoping to pick up some much-wanted baking tools). Well, scrapped those ideas! Who was I kidding? As for the plan to satiate my recent near-unbearable cravings for cupcakes with a visit to Buttercup and/or Crumbs (oh, did you see their Reese’s cupcake which was pictured on NYT’s website some time back? Talk about a little piece of heaven!)… Hah! Think again! I couldn’t believe none of that happened for me. How depressing!

Anyway, Body is now back in Singapore, safe and sound. Ummm… but we seem to have left Body-Clock behind in New York. And Body is feeling kind of lost without Body-Clock. The two were inseparable, you see. One would always be with the other. They would not be parted. But something happened a few years ago. Body-Clock started to feel “less young”, and decided to give up its jet-setting lifestyle. It now baulked at having to travel vast distances across multiple time zones. It didn’t like moving around. It wanted to stay in one spot, where it was comfortable and secure in its daily routine. Therefore, much as it loved and wanted to be with Body, it did not want to cross 12 time zones, just so it could be with its beloved Body. And having been dragged, almost forcibly, by Body to New York, it was hell-bent on not being made to make a second 24-hour long journey back across another 12 time zones, all within the space of three days. Heck no! No one was making Body-Clock get on another plane. Not yet anyway. And so, Body is now back in Singapore. And Body-Clock… well, it is still in New York. And me, I am caught in the cross-fire.

Body is inextricably linked to Body-Clock. It can feel Body-Clock’s moods, emotions, thoughts and desires even when they are tens of thousands of kilometers apart. Body defers to Body-Clock in all matters, foregoing its own needs and desires. Whatever Body-Clock wants, Body-Clock gets. Yes, even when it is on the other side of the world.

It was 4am Easter Sunday morning in Singapore (where Body is). It was 4pm Saturday-before-Easter-Sunday afternoon in New York (where Body-Clock is). Body wanted to sleep. In fact, so did Mind. Both desperately craved sleep. Body-Clock however decided that it was a glorious Saturday afternoon – a perfect time to do something exciting. So, here in Singapore, Body picked up on Body-Clock’s vibes, and despite the hollers of protestations from Mind, Body decided it was the perfect time to do some baking. Yep, baking. Oh, did I mention it was 4am in Singapore?

Well, what Body-Clock wanted and what Body has decided, Mind and Renee had to follow. So, we baked. At 4am in the morning.

Mind, having resigned itself to the thought of baking, decided it wanted to bake a cake. But Renee, the one remaining sane voice in this midnight madness, reminded Body and Mind that cranking up an electric mixer at 4am in the morning was NOT a good idea. Not unless we wanted the neighborhood policemen to drop by and invite themselves in for a cuppa, taste-test our cake and thereafter to offer us a serious “discussion” on the foibles of using electric stand mixers at 4am in the morning.

Okay, how about hot cross buns then? Perfect for Easter morning breakfast, no? Nah… Mind knew full well that Renee was not much of a bread maker. And messing around with bread dough, albeit a very simple bread dough, in the wee hours of the morning did not sound like a good idea at all. Finally, Mind, Body and Renee came to a consensus, and settled for cookies. Yeah, cookies. They were quiet things. Not attention-seeking noise-makers like cakes.

Mind wanted oatmeal raisin cookies. Renee seconded that. Body acquiesced. We grabbed the first cookbook off the shelf. Ah! Looney Spoons. Good! We haven’t made anything from that in a long while. And hey, we bought that book during our stay in Vancouver, Canada. That’s fairly close to where Body-Clock, our absent yet ever omni-present partner-in-crime, is currently. Perfect.

It’s a fun book – low fat cooking made fun, quirky and well, just a little bit looney. It was a massive hit during the time I was in Vancouver a few years back. A lot of the stuff I have made from it (and its companion volume, Crazy Plates – don’t you just love the names of these two cookbooks?) have been successes, although there have also been a few disastrous misses.

And so we made oatmeal raisin cookies. These were decidedly oaty oatmeal cookies. Compared to the usual proportions of flour and oats in other oatmeal cookies, this recipe used a heck of a lot of oats – 2 cups of oats to just over ¾ cup flour. So the texture of the cookies was more akin to perhaps a soft, chewy granola bar rather than a cookie per se.

Oh, another thing, Mind was so sleep-deprived, it did not read the instructions properly BEFORE we started. Only after we were elbow-deep in flour and oats, did Mind shout out: hey, wait, we are supposed to cream the butter and sugar together in an electric mixer. What?! Wait a minute. Cookies are supposed to be quiet things. What electric mixer are you talking about? Sure enough. That was what the recipe said. Well, never mind the recipe. It was there for guidance, right? Who said anything about following it to the 'T'. Renee decided that butter and sugar shall thus be creamed by hand. Besides, Body needed the exercise. And it also did not seem to cause any irreparable or permanent damage or harm to cookie subject.

We made a few other adjustments, but we’ll talk about that as we go along.

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
(adapted from Looney Spoons by Janet & Greta Podleski)

2 cups quick-cooking rolled oats
¾ cup + 2 tablespoons flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup lightly packed brown sugar
1/3 cup margarine or reduced fat margarine
¼ cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ cup dark raisins

The recipe did not ask for the flour to be sifted. But I always sift my flour, even for cookies. And so, the flour, baking soda and salt were sifted together, before being combined with the oats. This was then set aside.

The recipe asked that the margarine, sugar, buttermilk and vanilla be mixed together. I didn’t think that sounded too right. So, I decided to cream the margarine and sugar together first before adding the buttermilk and vanilla. The margarine and sugar were vigorously mixed together in a large bowl, with a wooden spoon and much arm power. However, if not making cookies at 4am, an electric mixer would be useful for this purpose. The margarine and sugar were beaten until creamy and fluffy. The buttermilk and vanilla were then added and mixed well.

The dry ingredients were folded in, stirring only until they were just moistened.

Lastly, the raisins were stirred in.

Heaping tablespoons of the batter were dropped onto a baking sheet that had been coated with cooking spray. Ample space was allowed between each cookie. The dough was first quickly and gently patted into nicely rounded shapes using the fingertips which had been moistened with water, and then flattened to approximately ¼ inch thickness using the back of a teaspoon that had been dipped in water.

Into a 160C or 325F preheated oven went the cookies, for approximately 20 minutes. The recipe gave 13-14 minutes, but I had to return the cookies to the oven for another 6 minutes or so. The cookies were done when the tops were dry to the touch and the bottoms were golden brown.

They were removed from the tray immediately and left to cool on a wire rack.

The book said the recipe would make 16 large cookies. I made 22 good-sized ones.

The cookies were alright. I wouldn’t say they were overwhelmingly good. But at the same time, they weren’t underwhelming. They were okay. Soft, chewy, very oaty, not too sweet, with nice plump juicy raisins. They were nice for something this healthy and low in fat. And yes, they were very healthy indeed. They were like a rounder, flatter presentation of a granola bar I guess. Perhaps lowering the oat to flour ratio the next time round would make for a lighter and more interesting texture.

And so, at 5.30am, with warm freshly baked cookies in our tummies, off to bed we went – Mind, Body and me. And Body-Clock also finally decided to give us some peace.

Lastyly, on a separate note, I would like to wish one and all (albeit 1½ hours belatedly…) a blessed, joyful and safe Easter!

Copyright © 2004 Renee Kho. All Rights Reserved.
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