The Great Cookie Caper

Okay, so my day was less than great before heading to my second week of baking lab, and honestly, it didn’t get much better. I was excited though as we were to actually going to make things on our own this time. Well, I got to class and found out that my job for the day (everyone is assigned a job every week) was the second shift of washing dishes. No big deal. So, I went ahead and worked with my partner on the Snickerdoodles that we planned to make. We worked well together and got things done pretty quickly. In fact, ours were the first ones on the rack in the cooler!


So, then I started my shift of washing dishes. Washed a little, then went back to my station to start measuring out my ingredients for my sugar dough (to be frozen and used for next week’s tarts). I managed to get everything measured out and told my partner to go ahead and mix hers up while I was finishing up my shift on the dishes. Well, on dishes I had a partner too. Unfortunately, he hadn’t come prepared to class and was getting pretty knocked by the teacher the whole day. Poor kid. Anyway, we were going along great with the dishes and had a great system going. Then….duh duh dah! Flood. Yup….flood. Somehow his sink and my sink drained at the same time (he was washing and I was sanitizing) and the drain underneath couldn’t keep up. Although we were told this happens quite frequently, it was our first day in lab (the first week doesn’t really count since we didn’t do anything) so we weren’t exactly thinking about the possibility. Well, we spent the next 30 minutes with a mop and squeegee cleaning up the floor. The only good thing about it was that we will never open the drains full speed ever again. Haha And maybe those after us will remember to keep an eye on it.

Well, when the mess was cleaned up and the hands were washed, I was able to get back to my sugar dough. This actually went fairly quickly since I had already measured everything out. I wrapped and labeled it and stuck it on the sheet pan to go to the freezer. At this point we still had over an hour of class left! So, since there were a couple teams still working on their first cookies (fancier cookies than Snickerdoodles), I went to go check out the other teams. Hello…so happy that my partner and I diplomatically chose our cookies by picking a name out of a hat because she wanted to do Rugelagh (and my first choice of the Snickerdoodle was the one picked). And although these cookies looked awesome, the team that ended up doing them worked the hardest in class. And I mean hardest! They did a great job and yes, I did have one when they were done and they were FANTASTIC! Anyway, one of the teams was doing biscotti that required a dip in chocolate. So, to keep us all occupied while these were all being completed, the teacher had us make parchment piping bags, gave us all chocolate, and let us practice writing with chocolate. So much fun!

Once all the cookies were cooled, the teacher went team by team to talk about each of our cookies and how they turned out. I was very proud when the teacher talked of our Snickerdoodles and all she really said was that they were fantastic and turned out exactly how they were supposed to! YAY! Not everyone got that praise! Out of 8 teams I believe only 3 teams got the “turned out exactly the way they are supposed to” so I was ecstatic! So when that was all done we started packing them up to take them home. Well, unfortunately I had forgotten my container to bring them home in so I had to use a plastic bag like everyone else. So, I carefully picked out 3 Snickerdoodles for my Dad, 3 for my cousin Jarre, 3 for my cousin Jon and a few for me and my Mom. Then I took the remaining cookies and traded with others so I could have a sampling. Well, when we were all done it was time to clean up so our bags of cookies went over to the storage racks. Everyone ran around cleaning up and when we were done, I went back to the rack to grab my folder and my book bag….and my cookie bag. MY COOKIE BAG!!!! It wasn’t there. I started looking behind the rack and under the rack and in peoples bags and everywhere I could think of. I said to those remaining to check their bags to make sure they had the right one because mine was missing. Instantly everyone started helping look for it. Nope. Gone. My carefully chosen Snickerdoodles were gone! I was angry and sad. How could someone steal my cookies? Trying to give people the benefit of the doubt, I thought maybe they just actually picked up the wrong bag….but there were no bags of cookies leftover. I was going to head home with no cookies after working my butt off.

Thanks to my kitchen partner for the day, and one of the other nice girls that is about my age, I was still able to bring cookies home. My kitchen partner gave me a bunch of her Snicker doodles (and thank goodness too cause I tasted one and they were darn good if I do say so myself!) and the other girl gave me her whole bag! How sweet. I tried to make her take some with her but she refused and said that she can whip up cookies when she gets home if her family wants some. It is nice to know that there are some nice people out there. Next week you better be darn certain that I am bringing a container from home so The Great Cookie Caper doesn’t decide to take home my scones and tart!

UPDATE:
It was nice to walk into lecture today (9/11) and find out that the whole cookie caper incident was indeed an accident. Poor girl running off to a class on the other side of campus scooped up her stuff and accidentally grabbed my cookies. She felt so bad that she emailed the Chef to tell her what happened. Today I sat down at my seat and the poor girl came over with my bag of cookies and was extremely appologetic. It was nice to know that someone wasn't just being mean. :-) On another note, I did try to get the girl that gave me her bag of cookies to take this bag but she still refused. So, I have extra cookies! haha