Rule for Baking Cookies: Don't Flip Out!

I never had an easy bake oven. I may have had a "Sweet tooth" when I was a kid, but as I grew older I became less of a fan of pies, cookies, and other cakey foods. I am not sure how it happened, but at some point when I was older, baking had become a hobby of mine. I don't know what it was about it, but usually when I was upset I would find myself baking. Maybe it was the fact that I could throw things in a bowl and literally beat the batter. Whatever it was, baking would help me work through my stress of the time. When I realized this I decided baking was a good release for me. Not only was I being productive, I was able to turn my anger into something positive. Not to mention whatever I baked generally turned out very good. Although I'm not really a fan of baked goods I did enjoy tasting the final product. Baking had become somewhat therapeutic to me. However, there was one instance when baking had not been the relaxing activity I had always relied on.

It's Christmas. Tis the season! For baked goods. I had decided to do something cute for my family and friends to get in the mood for the holiday season. I was going to bake them cookies. I had never baked cookies before, at least not by myself. When I was younger, I used to go next door to my elderly neighbor's house, and we would bake cookies after we would garden in her backyard. Since then I have not baked cookies. Typically, I would bake cakes and brownies. But I decided to give cookies a shot since I had a full tub of chocolate chip cookie dough sitting in my freezer. All I had to do was place the cookie dough on the sheet and bake them. Simple enough. I carefully separated the cookie dough into small portions and spread them across the cookie sheet. I placed them in the oven, marked the expected end time, and went into my room while the cookies baked.

Before I knew it, the delicious scent of chocolate chip cookies filled my room. I proceeded into the kitchen and opened the oven door. Something wasn't right. The edges of the cookies were turning darker than the rest of the cookie. I lifted one up and saw that the bottoms were charred, while the tops were not completely cooked. I FREAKED out.I was looking around trying to think of what to do. I couldn't take the cookies out, they weren't done. I couldn't lower the temperature, because the bottoms would continue to burn. I needed the cookies to be perfect because I was planning to give them away!! The bottoms are cooking, the tops are not! What to do?! What to do?! AHHHHHHHH!! AH, YES! So what did I do? I flipped them.

I slid the oven rack closer to me and flipped all the cookies so that the tops would bake. Satisfied with myself, I closed the oven door, and went back into my room. When I returned to the cookies a few minutes later, I was shocked when I opened the oven door. To my dismay, the bottoms of the cookies, which were now at the top, were black, along with practically the rest of the cookie. I couldn't understand how this had happened, and immediately consulted my friend who also liked to bake. I told her how I flipped the cookies so that they would bake evenly and she bursted out laughing in my face, to the point of tears. Apparently that was a stupid thing to do haha. But at the time, I thought it had resolved my problem.

Needless to say I did not distribute cookies that year. Nor any other baked goods because of my recent folly in the kitchen. I did not even want to look at the oven. If it had just done its job properly I wouldn't have had tried to compensate for its shortcoming and wasted all that dough. No one ever told me you couldn't flip cookies. Since then, I had returned to just baking cakes and brownies. If ever I want or need cookies, I know there's a whole aisle full of them waiting for me at Pavillions.