Chocolate-Dipped Lacy Butter Cookies

Dear readers,

Thank you all first off for all of your wonderful comments about the new “Lit, Wit, and an Oven Mitt” series I’ve been experimenting with during the past week. As all of you are probably only too keenly aware, writing and creating something even marginally distinct in the blog-o-sphere requires you to throw so much of yourself into your work. For those of you who had a chance to read the last two posts, I hope you found them nostalgic and satisfying, and that you’ll share the next installments of this series with your friends; for those of you who haven’t, you should definitely take a peek (but maybe I’m just biased! But really, who doesn’t love two fun recipe-sharing stories about Winnie-the-Pooh and Sam-I-am?)

Today, my friends and I watched a wonderful rendition of Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice, in which radio actors combined their amazing vocal talents during a live recording session with a completely gratifying display of visual theater. Needless to say, it was one of the best adaptations of the novel I have ever seen! The following post, the third installment of the LWOM series, is a tribute to my this-is-as-wild-as-it-gets-Thursday-night-#nerdgasmic feelings about the performance.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good appetite, must be in want of a cookie.

A thin, crisp, sweet chocolate-dipped lacey butter cookie. And the wedding gown is beautiful!

“A lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony, in a moment.”

A man’s imagination, however, cannot be said to be much less rapid. It jumps with equal urgency from chocolate-dipped lacey cookies to homemade fondant-draped wedding cakes, with no clear connection between the two thoughts to speak of, and unrealistic expectations concerning the oven-labouring capacities of his would-be wife.

If a woman is partial to a man, and brings over an entire tupperware-full of these quite delicious cookies, he must find her secret out. Men, after all, cannot rightfully be considered the stupider of the sexes; they are merely more deficient in those qualities that would render them competent judges of women’s whims.

In a word, if he finds a box of these cookies at his doorstep and checks his own excitement just long enough to taste a single crisp thin wafer, he will undoubtedly have proposed to her within the hour. Or if not, he will at least have the decency to purchase a considerable swathe of flowers and send to her a round sum of no less than that which Martha Stewart makes in a year…in addition to his eternal, undying affection.

In the real world in which we live, at least, this is how it should be. Whether or not the Mr. Darcy’s of Pemberley actually agree with this statement, is something best left to the personal scrutiny and experiences of the reader.

The writer will not to affect to impose her moral views in this case. It is to be noted, however, that every single honest young woman is in want of a Mr. Darcy equivalent, and would be well-deserving of her fate if all such reserved young men would cross our paths in a romantic fashion (preferably a ballroom dance), and just do the damn thing and ask us to have dinner with them already.

Or to visit a carnival.

Or to go paintballing. 

Or something.

Because honestly, men, as much as we’re all products of the 21st-century and huge proponents of gender equality and all that jazz, every single one of us still wants on occasion to be treated like a Romantic-era lady.

So says Jane Austen, the single rival to the Disney Corporation in successfully promoting bad matches and unrealistic ideals in girls all over the world.

I therefore leave you with this quote from the despicable, disastrous, and delightfully desirous Mr. Darcy:

“In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”

Yessir. Whatever you say, Mr. Darcy.

Chocolate-Dipped Lacy Butter Cookies

Original recipe from Allrecipes

Ingredients:

• 1 cup quick-cooking oats
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Cover baking sheet with foil and lightly grease foil. Set aside.
2. In a bowl, combine oats, flour, salt, and baking powder. In a separate large bowl, cream together sugar and softened butter until very fluffy, or at least 2-3 minutes. Beat in egg and vanilla. Add dry ingredients and mix until just incorporated. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto a foil, about 2 1/2 inches apart. Your cookies will spread a lot, so make sure not to crowd them too much.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 10-12 minutes, until golden brown. Allow to cool, then peel cookies gently off foil. You may want to use a new sheet of lightly-greased foil between each batch in order to ensure easy peeling (wrinkled foil will make it difficult to peel off your cookies).
4. Heat chocolate chips in a microwave-safe bowl at 15-second intervals on high in your microwave, stirring chips vigorously at the end of each interval. Heat only until chips melt halfway; remove from microwave and continue stirring vigorously until all chips melt. Dip tops of cooled cookies into chocolate; set onto parchment paper and allow chocolate to harden.