It’s a valid question
Originally published at Disjunction. You can comment here or there.
In the run-up to Mother’s Day, Gareth let me know that he wanted to bake chocolate chip cookies for Mom. This sounded like a perfectly wonderful idea to me as Gareth and I had never baked together before and because I knew there would be plenty of leftover cookies for me to eat.
We went with the dough-in-a-tube variety of baking since there would be less kitchen mess and, as a result, less stress for Brandy. Even seeing a disaster in progress will throw her off kilter until such time as the disaster is resolved.
I busted out the cookie sheets, the tube of dough, a spoon, and some parchment paper. I wanted this to go as easily as possible. While the oven was preheating, I put the parchment paper out on the sheets, sliced open the dough, and got Gareth in there to help me spoon the dough out onto the trays.
During this process, he started looking up at me and gesturing, which is usually his way of telling us he needs his letter board. I grabbed the letter board, put his hand in mine, and let him go to town.
D - O - Y - O - U - N - O - W - W - U - T - Y - O - U - R - D - O - N - G
“Do you know what you’re doing?”
Come on, really? All we have to do is scoop out dough and plunk it on a cookie sheet. What’s there to know? But I had a good laugh at his moxie and we kept on with the baking.
The oven was ready, so I popped our cookies in, setting the timer for 5 minutes so I could rotate the trays mid-bake. When the 5 minute point hit, I opened the oven only to see a cloud of smoke rapidly exit from within, clouding the kitchen and making its way to the smoke detector.
Letting the oven door slam shut, I threw on the ceiling fan and grabbed something to wave smoke away from the now blaring detector as my family wondered what the heck was going on.
After things settled down a bit, Brandy came out to the kitchen to see exactly what happened. I professed innocence, saying I did nothing wrong, but then she asked, “Did you put parchment paper on the trays?” Yes, yes I did. ”That’s not parchment paper. That’s wax paper.”
Sure enough, it was. Turns out that if you’re using wax paper, it’s best to have the entire surface of the paper covered by whatever you’re baking on it. It’s also best to not exceed 350 degrees when using it. I violated both rules of wax paper use and paid the price.
Amazingly, I did spare the cookies! But now, when my son looks at me and asks if I know what I’m doing, I’m going to seriously consider his question and make sure that I can answer it with confidence.