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Chocolate Treats
If you had entered my kitchen this morning, you might have thought a culinary
bomb went off last night. Floors I’d mopped only days ago are covered
in powdered sugar. More sugar and dabs of melted chocolate are spread across
the counters; and the sink . . . don’t get me started on the sink.
But that’s not the worst of it because, you see, I am a chocoholic. In the run up to Christmas, there is no worse time to be a chocoholic. Others shop at the malls, send cards, decorate trees; but my spirit manifests itself in baked goods, the kind you can eat and give away to neighbors, co-workers, students, or sell at church bake sales, my latest addiction.
I admit it. I’ve had a lifetime love affair with sugar, chocolate in particular, and it always comes on strongest when I am far from home at Christmas, longing for the sights and smells I grew up with. Yes, it starts with the smells, the slow wafting scents of chocolate in the double burner, batter in the oven and sugar on the brain. Then it grows until you find yourself in possession of a miniature Willie Wonka kitchen set cranking out cookies to beat the band.
Back on the farm in Macomb, I was always more interested in the eating, not the baking. But off on my own, it has started to come back to me. Years of watching my mother rifle through the recipe box then dive into a delicious fudge concoction once convinced me it was all written down on paper somewhere, the absolutely perfect way to turn the fudge without a hint of grain.
I remember one Christmas cooking Chocolate Crinkles with my sister and using a recipe we’d gotten from Mom. How silly we were to think you could make them right without refrigerating the dough for four hours or beating the chocolate into a creamy goo without the proper wire whisk. In deference to the master, we did both. Then, as we came down to the end, the mixture hardened into a slab so thick and cold you could skate on it. One little ingredient, doubled at the wrong time, turned our little Christmas Crinkles into a stone boulder. There’s something be said for experience when making chocolates.
I don’t just bake for fun now; I’ve become a chocolate dealer. Last year, while I was working as the nanny for two twins, their mother found out I could bake and hired me to deliver the goods for her cookie exchange. “We” were the hit of the party. Now I bake for Christmas. I bake for New Year’s. I even bake for Halloween. You want an ounce or a kilo of those bon bons?
And every year, I get a little more daring and a little better at it. What I do is my own. No sweet is bought from a bakery or squeezed from a tube. It’s all from scratch. Food is the one little way I show I care. Some love the season for the lights, others for the presents. I love Christmas for the indulgences it brings.
After an evening baking treat boxes for others, my own sugar craving ramps up in anticipation. My mouth waters at the thought of fudge and I can’t wait for my aunt’s mini cheesecakes. Every year I vow at New Year’s to cut my sugar consumption. But that healthier lifestyle is all out the window – again -- as I scrub the mixer and melt the butter for my next batch of cookies. I’ll wait to clean the floor until next year.
