Christmas in Brisbane

It was my first time spending Christmas away from home in Brisbane. It was quite boring, as most of my friends had gone back to their hometowns to celebrate Christmas with their families. However, we still managed to put together a Christmas Eve dinner gathering (with most of Ludwig's friends). We were to make a dish each to bring to the gathering, and since I was not a very good cook, and Ludwig and Eng Kiat had gotten that covered, I decided I would make some gingerbread man cookies.

This is not to say that I am any better at baking cookies. If you must know, this is my first time baking. Ever. Coming from a household where the mother bakes constantly, you would think I have the chance to bake a few times in my life before I hit the 20s. But, if you know my mom, it is a different story.

On the day before Christmas Eve, I had gotten the baking ingredients and borrowed some baking utensils from Kai Wen. That night, I set out to make the dough. Which was quite easy until the next day when I had to do the baking. I found out that Kai Wen did not have any gingerbread man cookie cutter and a dough roller, so I had to make do with what I have around me. Ah, the joy of being a student. I ended up making them cookies in the shape of Christmas trees and had to flatten the dough using a beer bottle.

All was well right until 10 minutes after I left the dough in the oven. Spongebob Squarepants: The Movie was on TV and Ludwig was on the couch minding his own business while I went about pottering in the kitchen. Suddenly, the smoke detector went off. In the midst of the deafening siren, we tried to disable the detector. Ludwig was fumbling with it, not knowing how to dismantle it to begin with, while I merely looked on, mentally urging him to hurry up before the fire department shows up. How embarrassing would that be.

Fortunately, we managed to shut the thing up by wrapping a plastic bag over it. The entire unit reeked of burned cookies the moment we opened the smoke-filled oven to take out the cookies, which had been smoldered to pure blackness.

It turned out that the 350 degree oven heat stated in the recipe, was actually in Fahrenheit, instead of Celsius.

So, I had to wait for about an hour for the smell of smoke to leave the oven before I continue baking the rest of the dough. We had two fans on in full blast to rid of the awful smell. And the fire department never showed up. Fortunately. Perhaps they had all gone on holidays too.

I decided to try again after that, because when you fail the first time, you brush yourself off and try again. This time, I have the oven at 160 degrees and fan-forced. At last, the cookies turned out alright.

Look at those beauties. Quite edible too, if I do say so myself. Not exactly the kind of gingerbread cookies I have expected. The gingerbread men I have seen were quite moist and thick. Mine were mere crispy cookies.

At the end of the day, I managed to finish baking the dough with an hour plus to spare. The crowd at the gathering quite liked them. Being the skeptical me, I did not know if they were just being polite or were truthful, but it did not matter to me. I wanted to try baking and I did. Even though there were a few set backs at first, it had definitely been an eventful Christmas for the year.

After all, what is life without setting off a few smoke detectors?

 

Credit: Simple Recipes