Desperate Situation

Two days ago I (but really, my man Tim and his sister Amy) received an e-mail from my step-father-in-law with the subject line “Desperate situation.” Tim and Amy’s mother, Pinky, recently suffered a fall while visiting New York City. She broke her arm. This has put a strain on her Christmas preparations, and apparently her husband is trying to take on some of the annual tasks. Said tasks include baking more cookies than twenty hungry humans could possibly eat in several weeks.

A family favorite is a chocolate/peanut butter/oatmeal candylike concoction that they call dog biscuits. I had these growing up too, but I’d never heard that name for them before getting involved with this family. I’ve never made them.

I imagine I got copied on this e-mail because Danny knew I would enjoy reading it. Too bad he doesn’t have a blog. I’ve decided to quietly share his adventure here. Happy holidays!

(And my take? Theory #3.)

THIS IS AN EMERGENCY

Pinky’s handicap has placed a number of critical duties on my shoulders. Things like cooking, cleaning, shopping, gift wrapping, cookie making, to name a few.

This morning I was able to follow directions well enough to make a batch of cookies containing cornflakes and butterscotch drops. Buoyed up by this success, I then moved up in difficulty to make “dog biscuits.” Any success I had with cornflakes was totally lost with the dog biscuits. As of this message, I have disposed of three batches of semi-liquid dog biscuits.

I did not take on the dog biscuits without consulting with Pinky. She advised me of the pitfalls ahead, especially about the 1-minute period of boiling. And she has concluded that she has no specific suggestion to make to avoid a fourth useless batch.

Here are some of the things she has offered as explanations for my failures:

1. Didn’t measure things right. I reject this idea outright. My experiences in chem labs simply rule this out.
2. Stirred the mixture of cocoa, sugar, milk, and oleo while it was heating it instead of just mixing the stuff and letting it sit undisturbed while it heated up to boiling. Here again I invoke experience from chemistry. If you want things to mix while heating, stir constantly.
3. I put the oatmeal into the hot mixture first, instead of putting the peanut butter in first. I admit that I do not know what reactions take place in making these cookies, but I can’t believe the order of putting things into the mixture makes a difference.
4. The whole thing is beyond me. I don’t really like to think about this.

Anyhow, if you want dog biscuits when you get here, give me a description of how you make them. She said you have made them in the past, which makes me believe it can’t be very hard. Here is what her recipe and directions say:

Mix ½ cup of milk, 2 cups of sugar, ¼ cup of cocoa, and ½ cup of oleo in a pan. Have on hand ½ cup of peanut butter, 3 cups of oatmeal, and 1 tsp of vanilla.

Heat the first mixture until it boils, and let it boil for 1 minute. Pinky says it has to boil everywhere, not just in the middle, and that it should not be stirred while heating or boiling.

After 1 minute of boiling, add the additional three ingredients, stir, and then spoon the stuff out onto wax paper and watch as it solidifies almost instantly. Hah! I have half a trash can full of half-liquid drops of the mixture as evidence that this does not happen.

To settle my nerves, I gave up on the dog biscuits and made two cheese balls.

Anyhow, if you have any suggestions to make send them as soon as possible. These are trying times.