Discussion Lost in a Good Fic -- The Well of Lost Plots Social Thread

I'll go find my recipe for the honey cookies, then...

 

We have three Timmy's on campus; it's hard to get away from them. I don't particularly like their stuff, but when it's 9:00pm and I'm starving and I still have an hour left of rehearsal, they're the only resource I have for getting food.

And your neighbourhood sounds... pleasant. Yeah.

My sister currently lives in downtown Toronto right now; her building's really new so it has good security and everything, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't freaky walking back there at 2:00am. Dundas Street is just freaky no matter what time of day, especially if you're from a small city like me.

You should post the recipe, Mar.

 

I love baking anything. Cookies, cake, all of it. Tomorrow I'm making a red velvet Bundt cake with powdered sugar glaze and crushed peppermint on top for my procrastinating family's Christmas.

Good luck with your resolutions, everyone!

 

Idri: Grimby can (Play with the stars, that is.)

Mar: honey cookies sound delicious Also, NSWFF: Party at Mar?s mom?s next Christmas

I?m still in the dorms, which means no oven, no stove, and no toaster. If it can?t go in the microwave, it doesn?t get made. (Though let?s be honest . . . I can?t cook, so, minus the toaster thing, that pretty much sums up my life all year round )

Ubersue: Yum, homemade chili But the living situation sounds terrible Be careful!!

FG: I love that you guys waited this long And that sounds delicious!!

I?m getting all kinds of crap to take back to school (yay getting it from multiple family members), but it?s all store-bought stuff (and SUPER healthy . . . yeah right).

 

Ooooh.

I just noticed something funky. For whatever reasons, I seem to have my Auto-Correct function in Word set to change every "adrenaline" into "adrénaline". I've never noticed it before and I wonder how many things I have posted or written where the word got changed into its French form without me noticing.

I had no idea why I put it into my auto-correct, either, until just right now: I remembered that I did a research paper on a Canadian clown called Adrénaline in second year.

Mysteriously, my Google search is currently in French, too. Maybe the universe is trying to tell me to switch languages or something.

 

Idri, where is that quote in your signature from? It's beautiful.

 

"Ne Me Quitte Pas" - Jacques Brel. I believe Rod McKuen's English version of the song, "If You Go Away", is more well-known in English-speaking circles, but let's face it: the French lyrics are much, much more gorgeous.

 

Of course, because French is a much more beautiful language than English.

 

I love baking.

I love cooking.

I just don't have time to both enough.

My best friend is a pastry chef so I swear to the heavens above, I want some of her stuff.

My mom has the best chocolate chip cookie recipe around. By the time it comes to actually baking the cookies, the dough is halfway eaten.

Great... now I want to make the cookies...

 

What's a Timmy's?

 

Clearly, you're not Canadian.

Timmy's is short for Tim Hortons, which is kind of like the Canadian Starbucks, but only really the characteristic of "finding one on every street corner" - it has more food options than Starbucks, but its coffee sucks.

 

LOL that would explain it.

And I'll keep my sunshine and palm trees, thank ya.

 

Recipe is here! Hopefully the measurements won't be too confusing (metric system > Imperial system ), but if you use scales, you should be fine. This is an old recipe used by my grandmother.

Traditional Slovak Christmas Honey Cookies

400 g (14 oz) of fine white flour (sieved)
160 g (5.6 oz) of powdered sugar
60 g (2.1 oz) of margarine (not margarine spread - special margarine for baking. Not sure if you have such a thing... if not, then just use any kind of margarine)
2 fresh whole eggs
100 g (3.5 oz) of honey (ideally dark forest honey - it's more aromatic)
1 teaspoon of baking soda
spices: 2 seeds of badyan (star anise), 2 cloves, 1 teaspoon of aniseed, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon - crush and mix in a mortar with a pestle until all the spices become a fine powder
1 egg + 1 egg yolk (well-beaten with a teaspoon of water - this must be done at least half an hour before baking, otherwise it will be too foamy) for spreading the cookies before and after baking

Mix all ingredients together and knead well until the dough is smooth and doesn't stick to your fingers or the board. Put the dough in a thin plastic bag and close it tightly - make sure you let out all the air by piercing the bag with a needle in several places. Let the dough rest for 24 hours in a cool place (NOT a fridge!).

After taking the dough out, knead it well once more, and then roll it out on a floured board - the thickness should be about a quarter of an inch. Cut out various shapes of your own choosing. Place the cookies on a baking sheet covered with baking paper and spread them thinly with the beaten egg. Bake the cookies in pre-heated oven (around 200°C / 390°F) until they're golden-brown - this takes about 5-10 minutes, depending on your oven, but you must watch them carefully; if they get too dark, they'll be bitter. Immediately after you take them out of the oven, spread them again with the beaten egg, while they're still hot (this will make them nice and shiny). Let them cool well, and then put them in a closed plastic bag for a day or so, to soften.

Icing for decoration:
Mix an egg white with one tablespoon of lemon juice and gradually add enough powdered sugar (sieved) to create a smooth, reasonably thick icing. I use a thin plastic bag with a small hole cut in a corner to draw the ornaments with, but if you have the kind of special bag used by professional bakers for decorations, good on you. You can also add food colouring to the icing to make the cookies more colourful, but I prefer to stay with the traditional white (and it makes a nice contrast with the golden-brown cookie underneath it).

Here's my most recent batch of cookies (the star at 2 o'clock is bordering on the "too dark" side, so you have a reference ):

[image=http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c251/Tauriel/honey_cookies.jpg]

And ZOMG, A:TLA honey cookies!

[image=http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c251/Tauriel/honey_cookies2.jpg]

 

THOSE. LOOK. AMAZING!! The recipe sounds complicated (for someone whose specialty is Easy Mac ) but they look so good I'll have to try them sometime.

And the A:TLA cookies ROCK!

 

There are a bunch of them here in NYC, too. I love the blueberry bloom.

 

Yep, Timmy's has moved Stateside in recent years. I am not a big fan of the doughnuts anymore, but their blueberry muffins are pretty fantastic.

Mar, the Avatar cookies will always be teh yummy awesome. Thanks for the recipe! I'll have to check it out the next time I'm at home and have the time.

 

It's not complicated at all - just mix all the ingredients together. Probably the most "complicated" thing is to pay attention when you're baking them so you don't burn them...

And Idri, I'd love to see your try at those cookies.

 

The next time I'm home, I will make them, and then I will draw TARDISes on them, and then I will post pictures. They will be almost as awesome as my Disappearing TARDIS mug.

 

I hope so; I can't cook. At all But I definitely want to try them

 

Nat, you should get a cookbook and learn. My mum gave me an excellent cookbook for Christmas - not only does it have hundreds of all-vegetarian recipes, it also covers really basic things if you don't know how to do it. It's thicker than a brick and is a pain to cart around, but I'm grateful for it because now my meals at school should be a little more interesting, provided I have the time to make them.

 

There's a cookbook, can't remember the name of it, that has recipes specifically for college students and dorm dwellers.

That recipe sounds good!

 

Oh, why didn't I think of making at least one TARDIS-shaped cookie?! I actually even had blue icing ready - I made a batch of round cookies with AT&T logo for my teammates at work. Damn.

 

Ooo, that sounds perfect!!

Though my problem isn't just that I don't know recipes; it's almost that I screw up basic pot mac and cheese and burn myself stove-toasting sandwiches

 

Thanks for the recipe, Mar! You're awesome!

I'm still mad at Timmy's for discontinuing their practice of baking their doughnuts fresh, and instead getting them shipped frozen from the factory. That ain't right. But I've been conditioned to like their coffee.

Speaking of which, time to put on another pot. I haven't had my daily four cups of it yet.

Nat, I used to be like you, but I'm a reasonably decent cook now. The trick is to get a good cookbook that teaches you cooking techniques as much as it has recipes (The Joy of Cooking is a good one), make simple recipes, and follow them like you're defusing a bomb.

 

It's best if you have a good teacher to teach you the basics. My Mum is an excellent cook (especially her baking is famed throughout our wide family), and she taught me well, I think, all those little tricks that you won't find in cookbooks, but they make cooking much easier.