Slaving Away in the Kitchen All Day

Tomorrow, I have to go into my second class ever with my new group of girls and give them an exam! What kind of fun teacher will that make me? Usually this test is given during the first class, but because their teachers are only giving me an hour, I have to break things up a bit. So, tomorrow is pretty much just going to be the seven-page pre-test, which will tell me how much these girls know and don’t know about puberty, menstruation, sex, self-esteem, and decision making. To keep the girls on my good side - although because I’m the cool, young gringa in town, I’m sure I would still be on their good side - I made them cookies. And I must say, it was quite the chore. Baking in this country is not the easiest thing in the world, but I love to bake, so it was well worth it. Baking the cookies was as much for me as for the girls - baking is very therapeutic for me. Not that I’m going through anything in particular right now that makes me need therapeutic baking, but after being in another country for three and a half months, it was time to pull out the mixing bowl and baking sheets. However, that is metaphorical because I did not have either. Here in Honduras, we really learn to make do with what we have on hand, and for me that was a non-stick soup pot for my bowl and a glass, oval baking dish for my cookie sheet - but, they got the job done.

At 10:30 a.m., I started my search for supplies. The first pulparia I went to had one little bag of ground cinnamon (about a half teaspoon - maybe a whole teaspoon.) The next pulparia actually had raisins, but only the little red boxes like we used to get in our packed lunches. Not the mini ones, but the normal picnic-sized ones. They had five, so I bought all five of them. However, this pulparia did not have vanilla or gowned cinnamon. I bought flour and oatmeal along with my raisins and then went back to the first place to ask about vanilla, which they had! They just had a big bottle of it that they sold smaller portions out of, so they pored about two tablespoons in a baggy for me, which was only one lempira. On my way to one of the other larger pulparias, I stopped in to two others to see if they had raisins, which they didn’t, so I made my way down to the larger one by my house and bought two more packages of cinnamon. When I got home, I found a recipe online and was all set - except when I realized I didn’t have eggs. Luckily there is a pulparia right across the street that sells them, so I was ready to go in a matter of minutes.

My host mom had a bunch of the Honduran version on Crisco, and also happened to have the Honduran version of butter, too, so I borrowed a little of each. I found the cleanest, non-rusted cooking pot to use as my bowl and then set off to soften the “butter and Crisco.” While it was in the microwave, I went and grabbed my fan from my room and set it up in the kitchen because once I turned that oven on, it was going to get ungodly hot!

The recipe I found online for “Think and Chewy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies” called for chilling the dough to really get the chewyness. Usually when dough needs to be chilled in a recipe, I never do it. But, I didn’t want the cookies to end up crunchy because I want the girls to love them. So, I decided to roll the dough into balls, put them in a Tupperware, and then put them in the freezer while the oven preheated. Before I got to this point, though, I realized I did not have brown sugar. Not much I could do about that - there was nowhere in this town that would sell it. I have seen it in some of the larger supermarkets, like in Tegucigalpa, but that is it. If I had molasses, I could have made do, but I didn’t have that either. So, I just made the cookies with regular sugar, which here is more like the raw sugar we have in the States,

When the oven was pre-heated, or so I though, I pulled the Tupperware out of the freezer, and greased the oval, glass baking dish I was able to find in one of my host mom’s cupboards. I fit about 10 cookies in the dish (and they are little-bit-sized cookies) and stuck them in the oven with my 10-minute timer set - actually I just put the alarm on my phone on for then minutes later.

When my timer went off, I peaked in the oven and the cookies looked exactly the same as when I put them in. I turned up the temperature and set my alarm for ten more minutes. Oh, and what was I doing during the downtime when the cookies were baking. I had brought my laptop out into the kitchen with the fan, and was watching a new guilty-pleasure show: Gossip Girl. I know, not the best way to spend my time in Honduras. But, Tricia lent me the DVDs for season one, and when I start watching a new show, I get hooked - no matter what the show is. So while my cookies were baking, I was speeding my way through season one of Gossip Girl. I must say it was like the most perfect day - cookies and the most girly show on the face of the planet - maybe even more so that Gilmore Girls -what could have made it any better? It took a full episode and turning up the oven two more times (until it was supposedly at almost 500 degrees) until the first batch of cookies was done. The second batch and the 4 batches after that each only took about a half an hour. The last batch came out of the oven at about 4:30 p.m. It only took five and a half hours, but I successfully made cookies in Honduras, which taste very yummy if I do say myself, and that was seconded and thirded by my host brother and dad!

The finished project!!

Thick, Chewy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

The last trick to getting a really thick, chewy cookie is to chill the dough before you bake it. You can scoop it and then chill it, or, if you’re like us, scoop it, freeze them and store them in a freezer bag so you can bake them as you wish. I find they’re always thicker when baked from the cold — only a couple extra minutes baking is needed.

This is a half recipe. It makes a couple dozen standard-size cookies. (I get more because I make them tinier.) I always feel like I’m swimming in cookies when I make the full volume, but if you’re feeding a crowd, go ahead and double it.

1/2 cup (1 stick or 4 ounces) butter, softened
2/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt (I often use a half teaspoon, but I like more salt in my baked goods)
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
3/4 cup raisins
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, egg and vanilla until smooth. In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt together. Stir this into the butter/sugar mixture. Stir in the oats, raisins and walnuts, if using them.

At this point you can either chill the dough for a bit in the fridge and then scoop it, or scoop the cookies onto a sheet and then chill the whole tray before baking them. You could also bake them right away, if you’re impatient, but I do find that they end up slighly less thick.

The cookies should be two inches apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake them for 10 to 12 minutes (your baking time will vary, depending on your oven and how cold the cookies were going in), taking them out when golden at the edges but still a little undercooked-looking on top. Let them sit on the hot baking sheet for five minutes before transferring them to a rack to cool.