The importance of a good spatula...oh, and a rolling pin!

Baking Blunder #1

Apparently having a good spatula is very important. Who knew...

When I moved out last year I bought a lot of my kitchen gadgets at IKEA. The spatula was 99 cents and being the cheapo new homeowner that I was, I didn't hesitate to pick it up. 99 cents!

I made cookies a week before Christmas with one of my good friends. She's actually a Red Seal Chef, but baking isn't something she does regularly. She called me beforehand to make sure that I had all the right equipment and anything that I lacked, she made sure to cover on her end.

Cookie sheet, check! Cookie cutters, check! Scale, check! Measuring cups and spoons, check! Ingredients, check! Kitchen Aid, check! Spatula, check!

So here we are making our 60+ sugar cookies for Christmas. I borrowed my sister-in-law's Kitchen Aid thinking that I could be all fancy - afterall, I couldn't be utterly useless in front of my Red Seal friend, now could I? (That's a fabulous appliance, by the way...). But ooops, spoke too soon...

I'm dumping out our cookie batter from the machine with my dinky 99 cent spatula when it snaps in half and cuts my finger!

SO MAD! ANGRIFIED! And so begins my baking rage...

Do you know how embarrassing that is and how important it is with baking? It's so tricky manipulating dough and getting every last bit without one. Luckily my friend brought a backup scraper so it wasn't so bad, but still. You damn cheap IKEA product! I should have known better - especially after working there for 4 years!

So, I'm down a spatula and after letting the cookie dough chill in the fridge my friend casually asks, "You have a rolling pin, right?"

Damn. Epic Fail.

Two take-out bags of sushi for dinner, a quick run to Safeway, an $8.99 rolling pin, and 60 badly decorated sugar cookies later...we're done!

Because I had such an excess of cookies, I gave a dozen of the best ones to my contractors. Our bathroom got flooded weeks beforehand by our neighbour upstairs so they were just in the final stages of completion. They were a group of 6 Asian contractors, who didn't speak much English, completing 3 units simultaneously (yes, you read that right, 3 units...meaning the 3rd floor flooded into the 2nd floor, which in turn flooded us, the 1st floor). They stayed longer that night trying to finish the units before Christmas. I gave them to one of guys in my unit doing some touch up work and he was so thankful. Huge smile, so much gratitude. I told him to share with the men upstairs and he nodded. I could hear him make his way to the 2nd floor, open the door, mumble something to his team, and then I heard a collective cheer from them.

So cute. Collective cheer! They cheered for my badly-decorated, spatula-breaking, last-minute-rolling-pin sugar cookies.

Only old Asian men, I tell ya...

But seriously, such a fantastic feeling! I LOVED it!

Anyhow, a week later for Christmas, I got 3 new spatulas. (Thanks Leah, Kenny & Erin!)

I cheered. :)