baking – Life In A Word

Going for a Spin, Spin, Spin

My wife and I enjoy popcorn after dinner, probably because we’re watching more movies at home these days. It’s easy prep thanks to our Presto air popper. Dump in the kernels, plug in the popper, and “presto”; a delicious snack in an instant. Of course, one of these days our air popper will break and we’ll have to buy another one. Unlike our KitchenAid stand mixer, which will spin,spin,spin until the end of time.

If your kitchen is like ours, the cupboards are full of appliances that only make an occasional appearance. Our Breville panini press hasn’t made a “melt” in months. Our Marcato pasta maker last saw action in the early 2000s. And our George Foreman grill is retired for good, because it’s just as easy to fire up the barbecue. But our KitchenAid stand mixer spins to our “Aid” time and again, always ready to make bread dough, cake batter, or cookies.

Stand mixers date to the early 1900s. KitchenAid’s version came along in the 1930s, and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn some of the original models are still spinning almost a hundred years later. The appliance is just that good. The KitchenAid was designed to be as simple, efficient, and robust as possible, and with only one task in mind: to spin ingredients in dizzying circles until they’re thoroughly mixed. Sure, you can add dozens of specialized attachments but none change what the stand mixer does at its core. Spin, spin, spin.

When I make a batch of cookies, I stand back in wonder as our KitchenAid does its thing. As I add the ingredients, the paddle blade works harder and harder to blend them together. By the time I get to the last of a dozen ingredients; say, chocolate chips, the mixer is practically bouncing across the counter as it struggles to plow through the dough. You’d expect the mixer to break down at any second in an explosion of flying gears and sizzling smoke. But it never does.

I know a lot of people who own a KitchenAid stand mixer, and I’ve never heard of one that stopped working. Even if it did break, the appliance is designed for easy repair. The parts can be swapped out individually and quickly, eliminating the need for a repair person or a new mixer. It reminds me of the old Maytag washers, and how their repairman was described as “the loneliest guy in town”.

Like most appliances, Maytags aren’t what they used to be. We yearn for the models from the 1980s or earlier, which could wash anything and never break down. Today’s Maytags are a shadow of their former selves. They don’t do as good of a job, and every five years you’re thinking about replacing them. Not so the KitchenAid stand mixer. I have no doubt ours will be a part of our kids’ inheritance someday.

Speaking of kids, our daughter has her own KitchenAid and it sits proudly on her kitchen counter. Counter space in the kitchen is precious so only a few appliances deserve to be full-time residents. A coffeemaker. Some sort of toaster oven. And a KitchenAid stand mixer, which somehow manages to look appliance-elegant with its curves and swoops.

“Mixmasters” (a popular nickname for the KitchenAid) aren’t cheap. Most models run about $300 USD for the basic setup. Consider though, it’s the only stand mixer you’re ever going to need. KitchenAid even admitted they expanded their color selection and limited-edition models in an effort to generate more repeat customers. (This year – and only this year – you can buy one in “iridescent periwinkle blue”.)

Our Colorado kitchen had a very cool below-counter cabinet, designed specifically for a heavy stand mixer. You opened the door, pulled a shelf handle, and your Mixmaster rose effortlessly out of the cabinet on special hinges, snapping into place at counter level. An appliance has to be awfully special to justify a custom cabinet. Or a spot in the Smithsonian Museum, where the KitchenAid stands as a part of the Julia Child exhibit.

I don’t need to go to the Smithsonian to see a stand mixer (nor do you). I have my KitchenAid right here in the kitchen cabinet. I can put down the laptop and whip up a batch of cookies anytime I want. Like, right now. Time for my Mixmaster to spin, spin, spin again, just like it’s done a thousand times before.

Some content sourced from The Atlantic article, “KitchenAid Did it Right 87 Years Ago”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Season Before the Sun

Every now and then I come across a little fact that makes me feel my age. Fifty years ago this month a one-hit wonder named Terry Jacks released the single “Seasons In The Sun”, which parked at #1 on the music charts for three weeks and burned itself into my twelve-year old brain forever. Any teen from back then will never forget the We had joy, We had fun lyrics. Ironically it wasn’t a happy song (as in …goodbye Papa, it’s hard to die…) but not to worry. Today I want to talk about the season before the sun instead.

Whether you celebrate Easter (this Sunday), the vernal equinox (a week ago Tuesday), or college basketball’s March Madness (on-going), the hints are everywhere: spring is beginning to, uh, spring. For my wife and I, the season means strawberries, when the best of the fruit is available for the next sixty days. For others it means the kids are out of school for a week. But surely there’s no better indication of spring than flowers. The bright bursts put winter’s doldrums behind us while the sun shines more often. Flowers signify new beginnings.

Guys don’t talk about flowers much (unless we’re gardeners) but it doesn’t mean we haven’t had our share of close encounters with them. My first was probably with dandelions (yes, they’re flowers) and the childhood fascination of blowing the blooms into countless flying bits. Growing up in Southern California also meant going to the Rose Parade, where the bigger floats average more than 50,000 flowers. Senior prom was probably the one and only time I bought flowers in high school. Call a wrist corsage awkward if you will, but hey, it beats the terror of pinning flowers on a girl’s dress.

Speaking of awkward, when I first met my wife in college I decided to be coy and send flowers, forcing her to make the next move. But fate played a part when the bouquet was delivered to the wrong dorm, the flowers wilting at the front desk for days. I didn’t hear from her for a while and she didn’t hear from me, and that meant we were thinking nasty thoughts about each other. “Ungrateful” (my end). “Loser” (hers). Another girl finally let her know about the flowers and it’s a good thing she found out. A marriage was saved!

If you’re thinking my spend on flowers is below average, I’m confident I made up for it in a single day: at my daughter’s wedding. Her bouquet, her bridesmaids’ bouquets, down the aisle, around the altar, at the centers of the reception tables, and on and on – the blooms were everywhere. Let’s just say the cost of all that color was probably enough to buy a small car.

I’ve brought home several flower bouquets over the years, whether to my wife or to my mother. What used to be an in-shop, DIY experience is now pretty much Amazon, where you click your way through the colorful screens of 1-800 FLOWERS or FTD to create the perfect arrangement. And as you know, you rarely get the exact look you choose from the photos. The fine print protects the companies by stating something like “depending on availability”.

I like to bake (which is not the same as “to cook”), so when someone says “flower” I’m thinking “flour”. After all, flour is to baking as flowers are to spring. Flowers wouldn’t taste good in my chocolate-chip cookies, but you do find them in other foods. Top your soup with a squash blossom, your tea with chamomile flowers, or your salads with calendulas, pansies, or marigolds. Not for me; no thanks. When it comes to flowers as food additives I might be tempted to say, “the bloom is off the rose”.

Okay, so I went through the lyrics of “Seasons In The Sun” again and noticed …now that the spring is in the air, with the flowers everywhere… , so… what do you know? Terry and I are talking about the same season after all. At least this one lyric brings a little joy and fun to an otherwise depressing song. It’s what this kid born in the 1960s might call “flower power”.

Blogger’s note: “Seasons In The Sun” really was #1 on the music charts exactly fifty years ago this month. My wife and I bought strawberries last weekend, which had me thinking about seasons, which had the song bouncing around in my brain. But the fifty-years thing is an eerie coincidence, don’t you agree? Maybe a higher flower power is at work here.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Doorstop Topper

The word nerd in me thinks it’s cool when one can be modified to make four others simply by changing the same vowel. Batter will be in abundance the next several weeks with all of the baking. The holidays are always better when shared with others. Colorado’s bitter cold winters are a thing of our past now that we’ve moved to the South. The chaos of the holiday season doesn’t really “bott_er” me (okay, that one’s reaching). But finally, we have butter. Ah, there’s nothing better than (or bitter about) butter, is there?

The topic of butter is brought to you today by an utterly ridiculous here-today-gone-tomorrow suggestion to make your holiday hosting more glam than your neighbor’s: butter boards. When I saw this picture I didn’t even understand what I was looking at. Even more insulting to this word nerd: the opinion piece I found describes a butter board as “charcuterie”. No, it’s not. Charcuterie is meats, not dairy. This unappetizing appetizer is nothing but butter, spread on a board, with toppings designed to take your attention away from the fact that it’s, well, butter on a board. I mean, if you’re gonna do faux-fancy at least go with peanut butter on a board, right?

Butter boards are an insult to butter. I think we can all agree, butter stands alone. You don’t need nuts or roasted garlic or dried fruit to ~~hide~~ dress it up. As long as your butter comes from fresh, quality ingredients, it makes anything it pairs with better. Except a board.

Can you tell I’m “bott_ered” by butter boards? It’s because my wife and I take our butter so seriously. Ever since a trip to Ireland, we learned the best butter is not only about quality, but quantity. At dinner in a quaint hotel in the Connemara region north of Galway, the waiter brought us a big serving of bread with an even bigger serving of butter. Seriously, the butter was more “brick” than “stick” (and certainly not “pat”). Ever since, our go-to butter is a brick. It also makes a great doorstop straight from the freezer.

Our butter dish is even designed for a brick, see? A stick would be lost in this Irish pottery; a pat even more so.

Speaking of butter pats, I must make mention of the device in the photo below. I wrote a whole post about it once called Sentimental Utensil. Who knew this petit guillotine was a timesaver to make butter pats? It showed up mysteriously in one of our kitchen drawers one day and I can only assume I inherited it from my mother. But inherited it shall stay. I can never get enough memories of my mother, as I alluded to in this paragraph from the past post:

And thinking about it even more, I can picture my mother using her butter cutter when I was a kid, leaving a perfect little pat beside the crescent roll that was positioned carefully on the bread plate beside each place setting at the dinner table. Because that was my mother. She was all about the dinner table. Everything had its place, even the pats of butter.

If you read the article on butter boards (please don’t) there are several dead giveaways on how forced this holiday trend feels. The first is right up there in the teaser subtitle: “Butter boards have gone viral…”. No, they haven’t, else this topic wouldn’t be worth ~~warning you~~ posting about. “… because of their novelty and shock value.” Their novelty? Shock value? Is one of your guests going to look at your butter board and say, “Well now, isn’t that novel?” And just what about a butter board causes “shock” other than the writer’s excuse to use (part of) the overused phrase “shock and awe”? It’s just butter, people.

The article should’ve gone with just the title so we could draw our own conclusions. Instead, you’ll find phrases like “… how fun the concept is…”, “… what’s fascinating about butter boards…”, and “… extremely versatile as an appetizer…”; none of which are true. The writing takes itself way too seriously and goes on way too long about something I will way never prepare. Unless it were frosting, of course. A “frosting board” would get my attention for sure. Put out a plate of cookies with a frosting board and I’m all hands.

But enough of the butter boards. You’d have to be blind as a bat to fall for this faux-fancy offering. I’ll bet you’ve already stopped reading. If you did make it this far, thanks for sparing a bit of your time. Comment so I know you’re not a bot.

Some content sourced from the Food Network article, “How to Make the Perfect Butter Board for the Holidays”.

P.S. I Love You

When it comes to snack foods, I’m not a fan of variations on a theme. Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts debuted in the 1960s with just four flavors: strawberry, blueberry, apple, and brown sugar cinnamon. Today you choose from more than twenty Tarts, including “Hot Fudge Sundae”. The original Triscuit cracker was a baked whole wheat square with a little salt. Today you’ll find a dozen Triscuit flavors on the shelf, including “Fire Roasted Tomato & Olive Oil”. Then we have the Oreo cookie. The original, of course, was two chocolate wafers sandwiching just the right amount of vanilla cream filling. Now Oreo flavors are too numerous to count. But there’s one you can be sure is a whopping success: pumpkin spice.

Welcome to mid-September, Americans, and the beginning of our pumpkin spice delirium. For the next two months you can expect an endless parade of “P.S.” product advertisements. My wife & I, we’ve already caved to the obsession. We have a package of “Pumpkin Spice Snaps” sitting on the counter. We have two leftover pieces of this year’s first homemade pumpkin pie sitting in our frig. And it’s only a matter of time before my car veers off the road and right through a Starbucks drive-thru for one of their classic P.S. lattes. (I’ll take a grande, if you please).

My daughter just reminded me Starbucks also brings back their pumpkin cream cold brew this time of year. That’s a good one too but let’s be real: none of Starbucks’ P.S. offerings should be considered “coffee”. We buy them for the spice and the sweet, not for the taste of the beans underneath.

Lest you think Starbucks gets the credit for our pumpkin spice mania, the record must be set straight. McCormick and Company, they of the little red-capped spice bottles, debuted their “Pumpkin Pie Spice” in 1934. At least three of the following are in the bottle: cinnamon, ginger, allspice, cloves, and nutmeg. Do I have this spice blend? Yes. Do I use it? Heck, no. My wife’s family recipe for pumpkin pie contains a different proportion of the individual spices than McCormick’s, which may be the secret to its delectable flavor. Plus, pumpkin pie is easy enough to make without having the spices combined for you. Dump the ingredients into a bowl and mix well. Pour into a pie shell. Bake. My kind of dessert.

Starbucks can’t even take the credit for the first P.S. latte. That accolade goes to Mexico’s Candle Company in 1995. The Starbucks version debuted eight years later. But you could argue Starbucks kicked off the forever-trend where we infuse P.S. into everything imaginable, including the good (Krispy Kreme doughnuts, Cheerios, candles) and the ridiculous (lip balm, deodorant, beer). As of 2016, “pumpkin spice consumables” accounted for an annual market of over $500M. Yep, we’re hooked.

The “Pumpkin Spice Flavored Creme Oreo” is not even an Oreo, at least not in my pantry. Nabisco attached the word “Oreo” but c’mon, let’s just admit it’s a seasonal wolf in sandwich cookie clothing. “Golden” Oreo cookies… with “festive pumpkin spice flavored cream” (and is it cream or creme?) Nope, the only Oreos in my book are black and white, though I will allow shelf space for the “Double Stuf” variety.

I’m not sure why this topic caught my eye because I haven’t had an Oreo in years. The last time I did I realized the taste was different from the Oreo of my youth. The cookies are not as soft, and there’s less cream filling in between (which is like messing with the ratio of chocolate and peanut butter in a Reese’s, a sin for all mankind). Like the misfortune of many other snack foods though, size and ingredients change for the sake of profit. And new varieties pop up to keep consumers buying. At least we’re not talking about the Lady Gaga Oreo. You’ll need your sunglasses for that one.

Now you’ll excuse me as I head off to a doctor’s appointment. My drive will take me past several Starbucks, which means I could be caving to my first P.S. latte of the season. Not that I’m worried about missing out. As soon as the P.S. season is over I can look forward to Starbucks’ Chestnut Praline latte all the way through New Year’s Day. Now we’re talking!

Some content sourced from the CNN Business article, “Oreo is bringing back this flavor after a 5-year hiatus:, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Sweeter Than Honey

We all have favorite name-brand products, and crackers are no exception. I grew up on Nabisco’s Wheat Thins. Years later I developed a taste for the more sophisticated shredded-wheat Triscuit. When I first met my wife, she introduced me to Kellogg’s buttery Club Crackers. Each of these products is a little different (and today we prefer healthier versions of all three). But I think most would agree, there’s nothing quite like the taste of a graham cracker.

As I put graham crackers under the spotlight today I wonder what comes to your mind first. For me, it’s two things. First, I’m taken back to childhood mornings at Sunday school, where the preferred snack was honey graham crackers and pineapple juice. I can’t think of another time or place where I ever had that combination of foods. Maybe the sugar overload was a strategy to keep us awake during the Bible stories? Second, I endlessly debate whether a graham is a cracker or a cookie. If you’re at all familiar with the ingredients, grahams lean towards “cookie”. They’re called a cracker, they look like a cracker, but nine out of ten stores stock them in the cookie aisle.

It’s appropriate my first memory of graham crackers is at church. They’re named after Sylvester Graham, a nineteenth-century preacher whose constant message was temperance. In Graham’s time, temperance was a movement against the consumption of alcoholic beverages, but also encouraged what may have been the first vegetarian diet. Wheat was its cornerstone, and wheat (flour) is the primary ingredient in graham crackers. To be clear, Sylvester didn’t invent the graham cracker (we’re not sure who did) but his preaching inspired its name.

The sweet ingredient in graham crackers used to be molasses, one of my favorite items in the pantry. Inevitably, molasses gave way to processed sugar. But as I discovered recently, honey is a key ingredient in today’s best-tasting grahams.

For you, maybe graham crackers taste best in s’mores (which I wrote about in Toasty of the Town), or the crust of a cheesecake, or even Moon Pies for you baby boomers. But for me, grahams taste best all by themselves. They play like a “cheat” to the more sugary options out there, and I can pretend I’m just snacking on a “cracker”.

I keep a stash of grahams in my office drawer to satisfy my occasional sweet tooth. I only need a couple of the 2″x 5″s and I’m back on track. The other day however, I pulled open the drawer to nothing but crumbs. Horrors! Grahams have been my go-to since the beginning of Lent because I’ve given up chocolate and “sweets”. So I quickly added them to my store list and vowed to shop later in the day.

But as so often has been the case during the pandemic, I immediately paused and thought, “Wait a minute. Why buy graham crackers? Maybe I can make them from scratch?“

Here then, I present what is the best graham cracker recipe I’ve ever tried. (Okay, it’s the only recipe I’ve ever tried but it doesn’t matter; I don’t need another one.) Gemma’s Bigger Bolder Baking takes grahams to a way higher rung on the cookie ladder (including a helpful video if you’re baking-challenged like me). I’ve eaten a million Honey-Maids yet it took me sixty years to realize grahams can be SO… MUCH… BETTER. Why? Because these contain a lot more of the good stuff and a lot less of the nasty chemical flavorings and preservatives.

You should expect these homemade grahams to taste better when you see the ingredients. The ratio of flour to brown sugar is 2:1 (emphasis on the “1”). Now add another 1/3 cup of honey. That’s a lot of “sweet” for a cracker, er, cookie that looks like a thin cardboard rectangle. But I’m talking delicious with a capital “D”. Think chewy instead of crunchy, with a rich “graham” flavor lingering much longer than store brands. They’re almost too good to be called a graham.

Okay, let’s close the box on graham crackers with a quick review:

They were invented as an alternative to unfavorable indulgences.
They’re a cookie by definition but a cracker by name.
They make you want to try Moon Pies (if you haven’t already).
They satisfy a craving for sweets without being “a sweet” (disregard earlier comment about brown sugar and honey).
They are unquestionably better made from scratch than store-bought.

If I haven’t sold you on how much better the humble graham cracker can be, consider this. They’re simple to make and you already have all of the ingredients you need. So, what are you waiting for? Go bake some crackers, Graham!

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

——————–

Lego Grand Piano – Update #10

(Read about how this project got started in Let’s Make Music!)

We worked entirely underneath the piano today, with the instrument flipped onto its back. Bag #10 – of 21 bags of pieces – contained an intimidating pile of tiny parts. I didn’t realize what I was even building until somewhat magically, pedals, legs, and castors appeared before my eyes. That’s right folks, this baby-baby grand now rolls.

I also took a deep breath and tackled the “loose piece” I’ve mentioned with the last two builds. Sparing you the heart-stopping details, let’s just admit I installed a tiny piece ninety degrees wrong. Correcting meant removing all the piano strings and working in a deep, dark corner, with the assistance of an X-Acto knife, eyeglass screwdriver, and pliers. Like I’ve said before, don’t get any part of this performance wrong. It’ll cost you later. Dearly.

Running Build Time: 8.1 hours. Musical accompaniment: Satie’s Gymnopidies 1, 2, and 3 (a deliberate choice to soothe me while I repositioned the loose piece). Leftover pieces: 3

Conductor’s Note: The tiny pedal to the right is called the “damper”. It’s used to sustain the notes you play after you take your hands off the keys. Remarkably, the Lego Grand Piano has the same mechanical action you’d find with this pedal in a real piano. Sit down at a keyboard some time, press the right pedal with your foot, and (with the piano lid raised) you’ll see just how many moving parts it takes to sustain notes. You’ll find those same moving parts in the Lego Grand Piano.

Banana Ranting (again)

Take a good look at this photo. My wife and I have this weird assortment of foods on our kitchen counter right now. Store-brand hamburger buns. A half-loaf of “artisan-style” marble rye against the backsplash. Below both, a package of ready-to-use French-style crepes. To the right, a spaghetti squash and a handful of wrapped Lindor truffles. To the further right, an oft-visited plastic container of peanut butter pretzels, fronted by a watermelon just itching to join a fruit salad.

These foods are not “still life” waiting to become paint on canvas. They’re not even past-due items from the back-of-store sale rack. They’re just random samplings from trips to the grocery store; items kicked to the kitchen curb instead of the pantry or frig. Two questions, then. If you were given this lot on “Top Chef” could you whip up something appetizing? Would you even care to try?

More importantly, I made it to the third paragraph before mentioning the pair of bananas taking up prime real estate front and center in the photo. I HATE bananas, be it look, feel, texture, or taste. Bananas need to go back to the primeval jungle from which they escaped. In my world, bananas should be called “no-passion fruit”. If I were starving on a desert island, shadowed under the gently waving fronds of a banana palm, I’d nosh on the fronds, then the tree bark, then the tree itself before tossing its worthless bananas into the ocean. Hell, I’d choke down sand before eating bananas. Put a gun to my head (or a banana); I still wouldn’t eat one.

For Pete’s sake though; no matter the magnitude of my banana hate, the yellow curvies still find a way to remain relevant. Take this pandemic for instance. Stuck at home means more time in the kitchen. More time in the kitchen means comfort food, and comfort food includes baking bread. Sourdough. Pizza dough. Baguettes. Challah. Naan. Sadly, we rookie bakers discover the ingredients in our pantry are as past due as our bills. Way past due. Flour tastes sour. Honey ≠ sugar. Past-its-prime yeast does not make the loaf say, “All rise!” Even with fresh ingredients we butcher the recipe by feeding, kneading, and reading too much into every step. Instead of baking bread we’re breaking bread. We need a no-brainer no-spoiler kinda baked good. Banana bread to the rescue!

Banana bread is easy; it really is. Call yourself a breadmaker with as few as five items – none of them “yeast” or “starter”. Sift together flour and baking soda. Whisk together eggs, butter, and mashed bananas (mashed bananas? Isn’t that what I threw up regularly as a kid?) Combine in a loaf pan, bake, and voila – banana bread. You’ll find the first four ingredients in your pantry already and if you also have bananas, they’re probably overripe (i.e. perfect for banana bread). Just like the bananas on my kitchen counter. I made the mistake of picking them up when I took the above photo. They’re so ripe they feel like half-filled water balloons. Or half-filled hot dogs. Or Twinkies submerged in water for a few hours. You get the idea. Ewwwwwww.

Now for the irony/paradox/contradiction/twist/flourish of today’s post (take your pick). I like banana bread. I’m on the fence of almost loving banana bread. Slice a thick piece, warm it in the oven, slather with butter, and it’s pretty damned good. As I admitted almost four years ago in my post Banana Rant, bananas work inside of bread like figs work inside a package of Newtons. As a standalone they’re a horror-filled rubbery package disguised as one of Mother Nature’s edibles. Downgraded to an ingredient they stand on the fringes of the vast arena known as “food”.

Enough with the spotlight on bananas already. Trust me, I had better topics to blog about this week. My pandemic-born obsession with Netflix. A lamentation to Major League Baseball for a season that’s never gonna start. A keyboard pounding to the heavens for dumping several inches of snow on our neighborhood this week (for God’s sake, it’s June!) But no, I chose to discuss the best use of “water-logged Twinkies” instead, keeping bananas a front and center topic. Kind of like walking into the grocery store and the very… first… thing… in your field of view is an acre of bananas grinning their pathetic yellowy smiles. They should go back to the jungle where they belong. I’ll make do with soury-dough bread instead.

Some content inspired by the 4/20/20 Wall Street Journal article, “Forget the Sourdough. Everybody’s Baking Banana Bread”.

Midwest Cookie Madness

I wonder how many modern-day brides still wear “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue” on their wedding day. This time-honored gesture of good luck includes a nod to 1) continuity, 2) optimism for the future, 3) borrowed happiness, and 4) purity, love, and fidelity. But some brides would rather not mess with the dress, understandably distracted by other wedding-day traditions. Like 18,000 homemade cookies.

Thirty-one years ago, after my wife and I exchanged our rings, we sliced into an impressive three-tiered wedding cake at the reception; miniature bride and groom perched on the smallest layer at the top. Per tradition we took that smallest layer home, stored in our freezer and shared on our one-year anniversary: a toast to continued good luck and prosperity. Had we been raised in Ohio or Pennsylvania however; our guests might’ve been drawn to the cookie table instead. So says a recent article in the Wall Street Journal.

Thousands of cookies at a wedding reception? Sounds to me like the latest quirk of the my-wedding-is-more-memorable-than-yours game (besting cupcake towers and chocolate fountains). On the contrary, cookie tables are almost as traditional as wedding cake, dating back several generations. They are the reception obsession of some Italians, Catholics, Greeks, and Scandinavians.

Cookie tables are traditional in Ohio and Pennsylvania as well, and these communities take their baking seriously. There’s even a Facebook page to exchange recipes, ideas and guidelines (see here). Cookie tables may soon become a wedding reception norm from coast to coast.

Here’s a “taste” of cookie table guidelines. Every item must be homemade by family members; or if purchased, only specially-ordered from your neighborhood bakery. Cherished recipes (i.e. “lady locks” and “buckeyes”) must carry over from generation to generation, no matter how time-intensive the preparation. Cookies must be as fresh as possible, leading to a flurry of baking in several houses days before the wedding (and lack of freezer space in those houses). Even the layout of the table itself has rules; considering the number of cookie varieties and which varieties deserve prominent placement. Finally, the table “reveal” must be decided: 1) Already on display as guests arrive? 2) Revealed by the bride and groom with a dramatic pull of a curtain? 3) Self-serve, or closely guarded by tuxedo-ed cookie stewards?

Cookie tables have one advertised – if not followed – rule-of-thumb. The ratio of cookies to guests should be around 12:1. That number allows a guest to sample several cookies at the reception, and take several more home for later. If I apply the 12:1 ratio to the 18,000-cookie wedding (a real-life example), there should have been 1,500 guests. In fact, there were only 360. According to the mother of the groom, “…my goal was to have a spectacular cookie table…” I’m sure the guests thought it was spectacular, helping themselves to an average of 50 cookies each.

Competition plays a role with cookie tables, with the goal of “mine is better than yours”. One example boasted of “…tens of thousands of cookies, filling nine banquet tables… six people worked for two days on the display”. Another boasted of “reserved varieties, prepared especially for (and only for) family members of the bride and groom”. Even the take-home boxes get a personal touch. With all this attention to cookies, wedding cake – or any other dessert for that matter – stands in the shadows (like the bride and groom themselves?)

When my son or daughter gets married, perhaps my family will extend the tradition to Colorado and prepare a cookie table. With my baking skills, I’ll commit to an impressive 3:1 ratio, five different varieties (provided I’m allowed to use store-bought refrigerator dough), and guests will delight in a consistency I can only describe as week-old-but-slightly-burnt. I guarantee it’ll be memorable.