Oatmeal Cookies Revisited

Oatmeal cookies are trouble. Does anyone else agree? Most oatmeal cookies are too dry and flavorless; in order to make them tasty, you have to pump them full of sugar, fat, peanut butter, or even chocolate chips. Forget raisins. Who puts raisins in a dessert? (Bread pudding with whiskey sauce aside.) Still, I have always wanted to make the classic oatmeal cookie work. I have always wanted to like it because I love the nutty texture of oatmeal. So why does oatmeal prove to be such a problematic medium in the cookie world?

Let's raise the stakes. Consider the classic oatmeal cookie as you would consider normal life. You have a great life; you have precious family and friends and the sweetest redheaded nieces the world ever saw; your oatmeal cookies taste just fine. Then comes a shake-up. Things happen. You are forced to change your outlook, your ambition, your drive, your motivation, your life plans. But the constants - friends, family, redheaded nieces - only become greater in value and quality. Things are different than they were two weeks ago; but with great perseverance and patience comes an even richer life. Oatmeal will never be the same to me again after making these cookies. New dimensions have been unmasked and I will likely never go back to the recipe on the inside of the Quaker Oats lid. Life improves by moving forward; baking improves through constant re-evaluation and modification.

And oatmeal cookie/life metaphors improve by just stopping.

Whole Wheat Shrove Pancakes

I don't know about you, but for me, pancakes have always been a little problematic. I've made them too gummy, too dense, and too black. I can never seem to flip them correctly in a skillet. There is always that stubborn pancake or two that catches on the edge of the pan during flipping and leaves pancake batter sliding down the sides. My pancakes are unattractive and troubled.

The key to golden, evenly-cooked pancakes is a griddle. You need even heat distribution (forget the patchy electric heat on your stovetop) and a flat cooking surface so the pancakes flip with ease. For Shrove Tuesday, I did not have a griddle, but I had the next best thing: a gas stove top. Even though at least one of my pancakes got caught on the side of my frying pan, they still turned out pretty nicely, and more importantly, light and fluffy.

And I finally realized why "light and fluffy" is necessary for pancakes, especially those made from whole wheat, which threatens the very lightness of traditional pancakes: the more porous and light the pancake, the less syrup you need to make your pancakes really sing. So be careful with your cooking times, and be careful not to overmix your batter. Those little lumps and air bubbles are essential to a successful pancake.