Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen?

Yes indeed...nine kids in a kitchen with a tiny oven, one cookie sheet and two mixing bowls is a recipe for disaster.  And a disaster we did make.  It was Wednesday afternoon - our afternoon off from curriculum to expand our social circle and socialize with the students from the French school.  This week that meant cookie baking lessons chez-Borch.  Yikes.

The plan was to start with the family-favorite "poop cookies" (a.k.a. no-bake oatmeal, peanut butter, chocolate cookies).  We had some fun defining "poop" for our French friends, discussing whether or not Coconut (the dog) had any role in producing this confectionery, and imagining the "poop cookies" our water buffalo neighbors could create (which lead to the adult discussion of how ridiculous it is to walk around the rice paddy with a plastic baggie to clean up dog poo when you are hopping buffalo patties the size of bowling balls all along the way).

Adding the sugar

Group Stir

After everyone plunged their hands into the warm poo and had a chance to form their own log cookie, we moved on to the more civilized sugar cookie recipe.  With more mixing steps and ingredient additions, this one allowed everyone a chance to get involved before we continued with the colossal meringue flop.  We successfully mastered the art of egg separation, added the required pinch of salt, plugged in the beater and watched it spontaneously combust before our eyes.  With smoke seeping from the mixer and the smell of burnt rubber adrift in the air, I was concerned that we would disappoint the masses.

Working with warm poo

Honestly, only three of the kids really cared.  The rest laced up their flip flops and headed out into the rice paddy to run around while the sugar cookies baked.  The three stalwarts flexed their mixing muscles and set about hand-whisking (with a fork) the egg whites.  Thirty minutes (and two cases of carpel tunnel syndrome later) we had soft peaks!  We added the sugar, whisked some more and congratulated ourselves on some hard-earned meringue "batter" that was ready to bake for a short four hours (remind me again why anyone in their right mind bakes meringues).

Enthusiastic bowl cleaning

The buffalo chasers returned to wolf down poop and sugar cookies.  With smiles all around we sent everyone home full of sugar and sweet stories of weird American baking traditions.  We're glad to do what we can to perpetuate the crazy American stereotype - it's our patriotic duty.