Frookies

I don't try to fool people. I think honesty is a virtue, so I don't try to make people think I'm something I'm not. Ok, the under eye concealer, the hair color, and the push up bra don't really count, do they?

For some reason there are some people who think I'm some sort of cooking guru or baking wonder. Really the only thing wonderful about me is that I keep going, despite the many charred, brick-like, or tasteless food items I produce. Here's an illustration.

It started with leftover frosting from making these. It sat in my refrigerator for a while. I'd eyeball it every time I opened the fridge door, mentally reminding myself to make Twinkies to use up the frosting. After enough mental post-it notes had cluttered up my brain, I got around to making the Twinkies. Then I pulled out the frosting to use as filling. It was quite firm, so I let it sit at room temperature to warm up. It wasn't its creamy self, so I tried beating it with my hand mixer. Alas, that only made it curdle into butter lumps swimming in a sucrose bath. Ugh. (Slams curdled frosting back into fridge, says some very bad words, and rewrites all the mental post-it notes to say, "Make new batch of frosting.")

The curdled frosting sat in the refrigerator. Chilling it made no difference. It was stalwartly refusing to become light and fluffy again. I got cross every time I saw it lurking in refrigerator. I imagined it taunting me, that I would have to throw it away and waste all that butter and sugar. No! I will not be bested by ornery frosting gone south!

I took inventory. Basically, what I had in the bowl was butter and sugar. Well, helloooo, we're well on our way to cookies, aren't we? I beat in an egg, added a teaspoon of vanilla, threw in flour till it had a stiff consistency, tossed in a teaspoon of baking soda, then added coarsely chopped walnuts. Spoon onto cookie sheets, bake at 350 deg. F for 9 minutes, and voila! - Frookies (frosting cookies).

Since the first ingredient to this recipe is an indeterminate amount of frosting gone wrong, I won't bother to give you the rest of the recipe in detail. I just thought you might enjoy the story, and take courage from the fact that even an awesome baker like myself (snort!) has little kitchen mishaps (read: disasters) from time to time. And the take away moral of the tale is: if life hands you bad frosting, make cookies!