Cookies on Christmas Eve

If Santa doesn’t get a plate of cookies on Christmas Eve, Christmas just won’t happen.

At least, that’s what I tell myself every year after the Christmas Eve church service–how else will I justify making all sorts of noise after 10:00 PM, leaving every cabinet door open and the kitchen counter as snowy as the ground outside?

I have my chocolate chip cookie recipe down to a science. I fall into a rhythm as I get to work, vaguely aware of my parents deciding on a Christmas album in the other room. My sister bounds upstairs to put on a pair of holiday-themed pajamas, and my dog waits at my feet, hoping in vain that a poison chocolate chip will drop.

I spoon flour into a measuring cup and attempt to level it neatly with a butter knife. Most of the excess falls back into its container, but some gets onto the counter, dusting it white.

I’ve always been a messy baker. Though my skills have evolved, my ability to clean as I go hasn’t. My workspace today is just as chaotic as that of the day I fell in love with baking.

Flour everywhere, semi-sweet chocolate chips strewn about the counter, and butter microwaved so long it hissed and bubbled in its vessel—that’s what I remember about my first chocolate chip cookie adventure. That, and the anticipation! Few things excited me more than a warm cookie that tasted like heaven and a second cookie that threatened to take me there.

Hastily, I threw every ingredient into the mixing bowl with no regard for the method specified in the recipe. It’ll all come together in the end, I thought. The dough was about a drop of milk away from being liquid, but I scooped it up anyway, rolling it into balls and placing each one onto a well-loved, over-greased baking sheet. As I preheated the oven (which I had meant to do before starting), the cookie dough balls began to lose their shape.

Hmm. I was pretty sure they weren’t supposed to spread before I put them in the oven. After I’d finally placed them on the top rack and slammed the door shut, I watched each of the cookie blobs flatten and run into each other, eventually forming one mega cookie.

Oh dear.

When the edges of the cookie had browned and the center had set, I took it out of the oven and waited an eternity before digging in.

Actually, I waited about 5 minutes; I had no patience. The cookie was sickly-sweet and sticky—it clung to my teeth and almost glued them together as I chewed. The melted butter I’d used leaked onto my fingers and left a greasy film.

It was delicious.

Anything that involved butter and sugar was a win for me! Was it the most technically perfect, expertly crafted confection around? No, not by a long shot. But it was the beginning of a habit I’d never want to break.

When I returned to the kitchen a few hours later, I found that the cookie had hardened into a flat, greasy, near-inedible mess. I waited for some sense of defeat, but it never came. Discouragement fell away to wonder, and a question entered my mind: what had gone wrong? A lot, clearly. As I sliced up the cookie and put it in a container, I considered getting back into sports and using the cookie pieces as hockey pucks.

A quick google search told me that if you use melted butter for your cookies, you should chill the dough before baking. And if your recipe calls for softened butter, don’t use melted instead.

Hmm, I thought. It looks like there may be rules to baking.

Slowly, over the course of several years, I became the type of person to microwave a stick of butter in 10 second intervals until it had softened just enough for me to leave an indent with my finger. Then I became the type of person to squat low enough to be at eye level with the “250 ml” line of a measuring cup, pouring buttermilk in, drop by drop, until it reached the line just so. The more I baked, the more I picked up little rules that committed themselves to my memory. I didn’t have to try to learn—the art was so fascinating to me that my brain deemed every new piece of information important.

A few weeks ago, a friend asked me why I loved baking so much. At that moment, I couldn’t tell her; I didn’t fully know. As I went about my days, pieces of an answer appeared in random places, but didn’t come together until I started working on an Oreo layer cake.

Anything that anyone creates starts with some small, seemingly inconsequential thing. Like a thought. Or a one-bar melody. Or in this case, one stick of butter that absolutely must be at room temperature. You could leave that little thing alone, or you could grab onto it, shape it, and build upon it.

That question repeated in my mind as I took great pains not to deviate even slightly from the instructions on the page. I thought about how boring and unappetizing each component would be on its own—I couldn’t imagine eating a pad of butter or a spoonful of flour. Yet these uninteresting things harmonized so beautifully with one another.

In front of me, a small, bland stick of butter evolved into a rich, smooth batter. Around me was a chaos of spilled flour, butter wrappers, and open boxes of sugar and salt. I was in that hurricane’s eye, in a moment of perfect calm. I believed in the rules I’d picked up over the years, but most importantly, I believed in myself. As long as I followed the instructions and trusted my instincts, I’d be okay with whatever resulted from my efforts. As long as I created something, I’d be okay.

I worked on the frosting, occasionally glancing toward the oven to watch the cake layers rise. The scent filling my apartment was of more than butter, sugar, and Oreos—it was of happiness and home. In my mind, I saw the cake coming together and my dream coming to life. I watched myself slicing it at an upcoming party, placing plates into eager hands. I saw my friends’ faces light up, and I saw myself glowing too. I saw my answer.

And today, that answer remains the same.

I love baking because I love creating. I love taking something small, inconsequential, and uninteresting, and using it to execute my vision. When the crumb of a cake is just light enough, when the citrus in a lemon cookie has just enough tang, I understand what success tastes like. The smiles on loved one’s faces when their days are made a bit sweeter–they fill me up more than any food ever could.

That’s why every Christmas eve, I end up in the kitchen, telling myself that Santa must have something to fuel his journey. I set the cookies on the coffee table in the living room and watch my family reach for them. Feeling the warmth of the fire and the love surrounding me, I am complete.