Compromise Cookies for Christmas
How the pandemic brought me closer to my picky partner.
Some remember Christmas as a time of pure joy, classic movies, and cosy evenings spent decorating the house with loved ones. For anybody lucky enough to love a fussy eater – of which my family has several – dinner table arguments and abandoned plates will stir up the same nostalgia.
I love the focus on food at this time of year; the abundance and variety around the clock, the evolution of family traditions across generations, steamy kitchen windows on a dreary winter evening. The talented adults of my childhood adored filling our bellies until nobody could move from the table yet one thing came back to bite them, year after year.
Battling fusspots and their many cries of “I’m not eating that” or “I want something I actually like” after hardly touching a corner of their plate was undeniably a disheartening nightmare for everyone slaving away in the kitchen. Neither vegetables nor roast meats could appease our small army of gastronomic rebels and their warpath never stopped at main courses. Not even home baked sweets brought this lot together, thanks to a variety of conflicting appetites and too little patience to cater to them all. This hassle is the tradition I recall most often as bittersweet: very much a signature of my lively family which usually took away the simple pleasure of seasonal treats.
Having recovered from my childhood infliction of fussy eating, I have migrated over to Team Food and begun my own culinary exploration to recover all the flavours previously lost on me. I can hardly believe how magical mealtimes are without the burden of crying children and adults alike to contend with. The dinner table is no longer my battlefield. Well, almost.
After my transformation, I swore never to look back. I vowed to associate only with foodies and those who could appreciate a wide variety in their diet but then… Enter my boyfriend: ironically, he takes the crown for fussiest eater of them all. With all my hopes for sharing recipes and cooking together dashed, I believed our mutual sweet tooth would bridge the gap between our worlds.
Think again! His tiny list of acceptable flavours covered both savoury and sugary menus so not even dessert was shared territory. At Christmas time specifically, we retreated into the kitchens of our individual families who had grown to know our preferences and came to celebrate one of the many unique differences in our relationship. At the end of the day, nothing can beat the love of mum’s meals.
Then came 2020 and the difficult distance we’ve all endured for much longer than anybody could have anticipated. This year I found myself cosied up with our kitchen and our contrasting tastes resulting in every single meal prepared separately. Don’t get me wrong, I love the freedom of cooking solely for myself and the knowledge that everything I make will be appreciated by yours truly, but at the end of the year I want something richer and warmer than just good food.
I was determined to find a middle ground. Something I enjoyed cooking, that we could make and eat together, that both of us would enjoy without either of us sacrificing our most favourite flavours. This is where cookies saved the day. Simple ingredients with an easy recipe and the opportunity to finetune a perfect compromise between our palettes, this huge success has brought a lifelong delicious tradition from my childhood to my adult home at a time when family can feel so far away.
Free from fruits, nuts, and distinctively festive flavours, these cookies have brought my favourite fusspot into the heart of what makes Christmas special for me. He loves the fudgy, chewy textures as much as I love bringing us closer together with this perfect compromise in my contribution to our many family traditions. For anybody seeking an all-round, picky-eater approved delight, this recipe is sure to be a winner.
Recipe:
200g all-purpose flour
100g unsalted butter
300g brown & white sugar (100g of one / 200g of the other depending on preferred taste)
Half teaspoon of fine sea salt
Half teaspoon of baking powder
1 whole egg
1 egg yolk
1-2 teaspoon vanilla extract
(Optional) 1 teaspoon salted caramel flavouring
(Optional) 200g bar chocolate – dark / milk / white or a combination
Method:
1. Preheat oven to around 175 degrees Celsius or 350 Fahrenheit.
2. Melt butter completely before adding to sugar.
3. Add in eggs (beaten), vanilla and salted caramel flavouring.
4. Combine with flour, salt and baking powder.
5. Roughly chop or break up the chocolate and fold into the mixture until all ingredients combined.
6. Line a tray with baking paper and evenly space out scoops of cookie dough. As they cook, these will spread out so make sure not to overcrowd the tray – no more than four larger or six smaller cookies per tray.
7. Bake for 8 – 16 minutes, depending on the size, and leave to cool.
These will be very gooey when you first take them out of the oven but you’ll know they’re ready by the slightly crispy layer on top. As they cool, they’ll set to a perfectly soft and chewy cookie with plenty of delicious chocolate chunks throughout.
I’ve made these a handful of times, each time slightly altering proportions of various ingredients to accommodate to very picky palettes. I prefer to use 200g of dark brown sugar with dark chocolate for the recipe, while my boyfriend strongly dislikes the flavour of both dark chocolate and dark sugar, so for his batch I used 200g of white sugar with white chocolate and left out the salted caramel.
This is an incredibly simple recipe that can be tweaked to feed even the fussiest pot of the family and replace the traditional Christmas battle with simple festive joy.
About the Creator
Ashleigh Harris
It's none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.
~Ernest Hemingway
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