The Beginning Of a Long Baking Journey

Almost everyone at least once in their life has experienced a long, dreadful family

road trip that they were forced to go on. Siblings are crying and can not sit still, parents

are yelling annoyed with their children’s complaints, the car is trashed, and you can

barely sit still for one more minute. It turns out to be the most exhausting experience of

all time, and by the time you have reached your destination the whole family is already

sick of each other.

These are some of the same emotions I felt the first time baking chocolate chips

cookies. I honestly had no idea what I was doing. Annoyance, confusion, and

exhaustion seemed to be the only emotions I could feel at that moment of time.

The long journey began on a saturday afternoon. All I brought with me for the

long ride was my recipe and the inexperience I have. Since this was my first time, I

knew it was necessary to have my sister Payton with me in the kitchen. She has way

more knowledge about baking than me.

“Ok, what is the first step?” says Payton.

“I think we need to… um… preheat the oven!” I say, with a sense of pride that I

knew what I was doing.

So I preheated the oven to 375, and after I took the smaller bowl and began the

dry ingredients, which was flour, salt, and baking soda.

“What does the recipe say next?” asks my sister, trying to keep me in the right

direction.
 “I think we will take the larger bowl…” I say waiting for my sister's nod of

approval, “and now we mix the butter, sugars, and…”

“Vanilla!” Payton says with a slight tone of disapproval.

“Right! I knew that”

I was relieved having my sister there to give direction, otherwise I would have

been lost. Obviously I can not be driving alone.

After putting the butter, sugars, and VANILLA into the bowl, I went to get the

mixer and began mixing them together until they were creamy.

Next I had to add the dry ingredients, and this is where I started to become

frustrated. Since I didn’t know much about what I was doing, I combined the dry

ingredients and the other ingredients all at once, and quickly I learned I was doing it all

wrong.

“Payton, why does this seem super super dry?”

“Cooper, did you add the dry ingredients all at once or slowly in little parts?

“Uhhhh… all at once?”

“Cooper noooooo”

So from there we had to take a slight detour, but did NOT want to start over.

“I just want this to be over. I'm exhausted, maybe we can just add something to

make it less dry?” I suggest

“Wouldn’t hurt to try,” she replies.

So we went off the map of directions, and we decided to add milk, hoping it

would not be as dry. Little did we know, we might as well just have started over.
 After adding the milk, I thought I had done something and was excited because

they didn’t seem as dry. So we mixed them, scooped them out, put them on a pan, and

in the oven they went.

It was the last part of our ride, and we were just done. It's the time when you are

most anxious to reach the destination you have been waiting for, and indeed we were.

The time had come. The long ride was finally over.

We took them out of the oven, and were instantly disappointed. They somehow

turned out as little mini cakes instead of cookies.

“Well, we tried,” my sister said, and she walked upstairs.

“I might as well try them,” I said, “Maybe they are not that bad.”

I took one bite, walked over to the garbage, spit it out of my mouth, and threw the

cookie away.