cooking/baking

I am a weird phenomenon it seems. What do I mean by this? Well...in my generation it seems that there are a precious few that really cook from scratch. We are a generation of convenience; i.e. eating out and/or cooking from a box or similar prepackaged prepared food. Until college I had rarely made anything instant (only minute rice which always ended up watery) or anything from a box . In fact my college roommate had to teach me how to make instant mashed potatoes! (I, in return, taught her how to cook a roast, roast a chicken, and do other "martha stewart stuff" as she called it.). Over and over again through the years I have tried making various "boxed" foods and some I have mastered sufficiently and some continue to be failures. Yes, it perplexes me that I cannot cook very well from a "box". It would stand to reason that if one can make something entirely from scratch that "cooking from a box" would be a breeze, but for me that does not seem to be the case. Brownies usually turn out just okay, cakes form this crazy mound in the middle while being super thin around the edges (yes I spread the batter out, even tried putting more to the outsides then the middle!), instant potatoes taste like anything but potatoes (more like paste!), and well...hamburger helpers I actually can do. So what brought upon this post? It was my complete, total, and utter failure in making valentine sugar cookies from a tube of pre-made dough! The grocery store I work at had Pillsbury sugar cookie dough in the mega tubes for 99cents! I had been planning on making roll out sugar cookies with Miriam for Valentines Day in the shape of hearts. I thought...why go through the trouble of making dough when I can buy it for 99cents. Heck...the ingredients I would use would cost more then that! So...we followed the directions on the tube for roll out cookies, cut out our hearts and put them in the oven. What came out of the oven was NOT hearts! I'm used to sugar cookies being fairly think, slightly chewy, and "normal sized". These cookies were thin, extremely chewy (to the point of drooping when held), and a HUGE lop-sided circle thingy (they more then doubled in size outward)! I had followed the directions to the letter, except I cooked them about 3-5 minutes longer then they said (so they shouldn't have been undercooked!) because they just didn't look done to me in the time frame they gave. So why did they turn out so not right?!?!?! Well...being the cook I am I tried to mess with the dough, adding more flour since it seemed like if they were that flat, overly soft, and didn't hold a shape then that is what they needed. Guess I was wrong because what I ended up with was no better then before...might even say it was worse. The cookies were still flat, huge and not heart-shaped, and this time they cooked in half the time (thus I really overcooked the first sheet) and were crispy!!! So...I am still cursed when it comes to baked goods from a box...err tube. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately for my pride) I didn't take any pictures of the foray, so I can't share them with you. You will just have to take my word on this misadventure. I am off now to make some perfectly shaped sugar cookies from scratch. Ones that will be worth putting frosting on and making look all pretty, maybe even too pretty to eat...but that won't stop us! Of course now I don't know what shape to cut out since Valentines Day is past...hmmmm....