Monday, March 18, 2013

Cookies


It all started with a cookie recipe.

Back in June of 2010 Eli and I worked at Camp of the Good Shepherd in Louisville, NE before we moved to Romania.  Penny Burkum was the cook for a couple of the camps and I helped her.  She had this amazing chocolate chip cookie recipe that made one of the most amazing homemade cookies I had ever had. Now I have baked a lot of cookies of all flavors in my life, but they never seem to turn out good.  They always are flat and get crunchy very quickly…please help if you got any solutions for this.  After making this amazing recipe a few times I am convinced that it is not recipe that makes the cookies amazing, but the person baking them.  There is just something about Penny and the love she put in them that was just amazing. 

Happy Birthday (in English) A birthday cake for one the kids. 
Anyways, I have always enjoyed baking and wanted to make the amazing cookies in Romania as well.  I remember the first time we went to the store here and I looked at the baking section with all the different supplies and different names; I almost cried.  It was not going to be as easy as it was the US where I could read the packages and knew what each product did.  It didn’t take too long though to figure out things and I was baking up a storm.  The mixes of all sorts are not common here either, so everything is from scratch.  I miss my cake mixes whenever I want.  Last year I had many people bring me some and it was so nice.  I have found some good from scratch cake recipes thought that turn out good.  It seemed like everything made the first time here turned out bad, but somehow I think I have the hang of it and am having good results.  The new oven last year helped out a lot as well.

The first time we had a team from the US come over was after we had lived here just two weeks if I remember right.  I wanted to try my hand at the amazing chocolate chip cookies. They turned out ok, but again I have never been a great cookie baker and although I’ve had more experience from when I was a kid baking I still do not produce amazing bakery quality products. Cookies that are as common as hamburgers and apple pie in America are not common here.  You can now find cookies to buy at the store that are a lot like chips ahoy, but finding soft bakery style cookies is rare.  Every time I bake “normal American” baked items I get tons of comments about how they are so good or if I invented them.   Many Romanians think I am this amazing baker; let me tell you it is a real boost for the self-esteem!   After that first time I think I gave out the recipe to two of the Romanian translators that were here with the team.   Maybe a month later I made the cookies again for a family and they wanted the recipe.  A simple chocolate chip cookie recipe is all new here!  I have given out this recipe many times as well as others.  Oreo brownies are a favorite as well…just brownies with crumbled Oreos in the batter and scattered on top.

Each week we go visit two orphanages and we bring them some kind of dessert treat each time.  We also have a youth group at the house once a week that I try to make treats for as well.  I make a variety of treats: all sorts of cookies, brownies, rice crispy treats, cupcakes, muffins, etc.  They love it and I enjoy doing it, sometimes they even fight over who got the most cookies.  The kids are very thin, so we like to try to fatten them up a bit.  At one of the orphanages we bring them milk as well to eat with their treats each week.  This year I’ve added making birthday cakes for the kids.  They usually do not get a cake at the orphanage.  This might mean a lot of cakes because we work with a lot of kids, maybe just one a month for those who have a birthday that month.    I’ve made several pies for friends and neighbors as well.  They have something they call a pie, but it is nothing like our pies.  Just rolled up dough with filling more like a tortilla or crape with filling.    One reason I think the different treats are liked so much is the amount of sugar in them.  Their desserts generally do not seem to be as sweet and who doesn’t like more sugar!

For months I’ve thought off and on that it would be neat to come up with some kind of devotion or something to give out with a recipe when people ask, then ask them to pass it along as well if they give the recipe to someone else.  I know one gal that has given the chocolate chip recipe to her neighbor.   If you have any ideas please let me know.  

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