My two-tablespoon size cookie scoop received a good workout last week. After months of hard work, I finally began tapering for World Masters Championship. I cut back on the volume of my training while keeping the intensity high. It is now time to rest so the body will be fresh on race day Sunday. Regular readers may recall that I was so tired the last few weeks that I barely had enough energy to feed myself. A side effect of tapering is that I return to my energetic self. All I wanted and all I did was bake, bake, bake!
Plenty of cookies and cakes were made last week. Drop cookies that were conveniently shaped with my cookie scoop, in particular. The scoop was that I wanted to create a beautiful assortment of cookies for Boyfriend to enjoy when I visited him in Virginia over the weekend. Mission accomplished! But let me tell you, it was a labour of love. When you see a small box of cookie assortment, never under-estimate the amount of work involved. For every different cookie in the box, there is one whole batch that you cannot see. It is just as much work to make one cookie versus twenty. These textbook-perfect Oatmeal Chocolate Cookies were part of the mix.
I am partial to drop cookies that bake up thick and round. Crispy edges hiding a soft chewy centre is also much desired. These gorgeous specimen were courtesy of Cook’s Country. The recipe is available online for a limited time and I highly recommend you to take notes! The cookies had a tender and toothsome texture thanks to addition of rolled oats, oat flour, and melted milk chocolate. Incorporating milk chocolate directly into the dough gave the cookies such delicious flavour. They were generously studded with dark chocolate chips and toasted walnuts to create these crowd-pleasers.
Tonight I begin my journey to Damp, Germany. My suitcase is obviously packed with all my gears and clothing (spandex galore!). Tucked in the bottom somewhere, there is also a bag of chocolate chips, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, silicone spoonulas, and my trusty cookie scoop. I have a hunch that I’ll be doing some baking again in the dormitory common kitchen after racing wraps up. But for now, the moment which I’ve been living, breathing, dreaming, working, and waiting for since January is about to begin.
