Today was one of those Michigan summer days that turns from beauty to beast as the clock ticks past noon. We spent the morning out and about but by 1 o’clock you could hear the thunder in the distance and there was not one patch of blue overhead. So, as the weather closed in with a fury we all took refuge in the kitchen and decided to bake cookies. My batch? Oatmeal raisin using my own big flat chewy crisp recipe version. Crun-chewy, as they say.
Oddly, every time I bake these I follow my recipe but always have a question as to the baking time. I got that figured out today, lower temp, longer time. But what I was reminded of again today was the magic of the cookie sheet.
We have a few long resident cookie sheets. The queen of the fleet, however, is a vast, well blackened aluminum sheet from the 40’s or 50’s, a Wear-Ever No.799, made in U.S.A. It belonged to my grandmother. I remember as a child how my Mom had treasured this, her Mother's baking sheet, with its exceptional baking qualities.
Today as I fitzed a bit with temp and cooking times I was once again amazed at the quality of the bake one consistently gets from that antique sheet. There remains a little anger in the ol’ girl—ignore her and you get potato chips rather than cookies. But mind your p’s and q’s and you get sheet after sheet of oatmeal perfection.
Sitting here after doing the clean up I realize the difference between our contemporary sheets, aluminum just the same, and my Grandma’s: My Mom and Grandma are in that sheet. I'm channeling my maternal ancestors when I use that Wear-Ever 799! Gotta be.
Lordy, I hope they weren’t listening when my knuckle kissed the hot edge of that sheet. Hmmmm, or maybe……
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