All Rolling Pins are not Created Equal

Scott and I have lived in our home for over 10 years now.  We’ve done a lot of remodeling in that time.  Floors, kitchen, walls.  We never had a house-warming, and we’ve really done very little entertaining.  Just once about 5 years ago, we invited a few friends over.  In the interim, we’ve hosted dinner a few times for people that one or the other of us were working with.  But nothing either of us really consider entertaining.

This is the year that changes.  We have decided to host a Christmas Party for some friends from church.  I decided that I would like to do some baking for this party.  On the menu would be my favorite, rum balls, and Russian tea cakes, and frosted cookies in the shape of stars and trees and bells and the like.

The rum balls were easy to make.  I made the dough on Thanksgiving morning, and that night, Scott and I stood shoulder to shoulder and rolled out the balls, dipped them in powdered sugar and hid them well.

The Russian tea cakes were a little more difficult.  I didn’t let the butter soften at room temperature, so it was a bit of a chore to mix it.  But, eventually that succeeded, and we have 3 dozen delicious cakes… I know: I’ve sampled them!

The cookies proved to be a bit more of a challenge!  Now, those who know me well, know I do not like to cook.  The concepts involved are just far too complex for me!  I can make a main course.  I can prepare a vegetable.  I can heat up biscuits and rolls.  But getting them all to be done at or about the same time is just rocket science when it comes to my abilities!

One of the problems I have with cooking… and it really becomes obvious when I try to make cookies from scratch… is the meanings of terms.  Lightly floured.  Roll until thin.  What’s thin?  Is paper thin too thin?  Is a quarter inch of cookie dough thin?  Or is it too thick?  And what should cookie dough look like to know if I’ve too much flour or too little in it?

Then there’s the preparation.

When we remodeled the kitchen, we put down tiled counter tops.  They’re very nice… but it’s difficult to roll out cookies on tile!  So, we hunted down a sheet of Plexiglas at our local Home Depot.  We wanted one of those old Tupperware pie thingies (that’s the technical term, I think) but can’t find them in the shops we visited.

We have a rolling pin.  So, we didn’t need to buy one of those.  It’s a nice one.  It’s set on an exposed shelf in our kitchen for nearly 10 years looking nice.  It’s never been used until I ground up the vanilla wafers for the rum balls.

Tuesday, the day came.  I gathered all my ingredients together, and started mixing them.  I sifted flour (did you know 3 cups of sifted flour is about the same as 1 and a half cups unsifted?)  Finally, I had a peanut butter consistency dough and put it in to the fridge to chill “for a few hours or overnight”.  By the time Scott got home from work, several hours would pass.  I wanted Scott to supervise the next stage… he knows what he’s doing!  But “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” was on TV and we watched that, first.  Then we watched a saved episode of CSI:Miami.  And then, it was time for bed!

Wednesday, I was gone from before 7 a.m. until nearly 8 p.m.  And I was totally exhausted.  So, no cookie rolling Wednesday.

This morning, I finally squared my shoulders, looked at the dough, and thought “Oh, how hard could this be, for cryin’ out loud!?”  I dusted the Plexiglas with a half cup unsifted flour.  Slick Plexiglas does not dust well!  I grabbed about half of the dough, plopped it down on the mound of flour, grabbed my marble rolling pin and rolled.

And that’s when I discovered that not all rolling pins are equal!  The dough stuck to the pin like peanut butter to the roof of a dog’s mouth!  And it clung there for dear life.  After peeling off the dough in great gooey gobs, I washed the pin, and looked at the dough.  I put my hands in to pull out a mass to try again, but it was like trying to get a handful of peanut butter.  It stuck to my fingers.  But just enough flour had adhered to the dough from the first attempt, I got the idea “Hey, maybe I didn’t put enough flour in the dough!  So I mixed some… a lot of some… flour in to the dough and kneaded it like a 2 year old with his play dough!

Then, I saw the parchment paper for the other item I intend to make, so I tried covering the dough with that and then rolling!  Success!  From there, I pulled out my new cookie cutters, and cut some santas (they came out looking like oh who knows? How does one describe those shapes?) and candy canes… another disaster shape.  I finally  discovered that stars, bells and trees were the easiest to make.  Each batch I rolled out got easier than the last, as each batch had more and more flour added to it.  I think I REALLY under-measured the flour when I made the dough.

Nikki got quite a bit of dough… my disasters ended up in her mouth.  Or mine.

But, I now have sugar cookies.

As I worked, images came to me of making cookies with Mom oh so long ago.  The wooden rolling pin.  The wooden surface she brought out for cookie making.  The consistency of the dough.  The next batch, should I decide to make them, should go so much more easily!

Now.  A question for my gentle reader.  Should I attempt that Buche de Noel?