contamination

My daughter baked the most beautiful cookies tonight. She intended to take them to school to share with friends, but eventually gave in to my begging and let me have just one. I chomped into it with glee, freezing mid-munch when I suddenly noticed that it tasted strange.

A few minutes of sleuthing and sniffing in the kitchen revealed our culprit: the cinnamon bottle.

See, I buy spices in bulk, and they are packaged in plastic bags. I fill up my little glass bottles, then throw the bags in a big plastic tub with a lid in my pantry for storage until I need to refill the bottles.

Well, folks, apparently either cumin or curry or both are quite volatile spices. Volatile, is that the right word? Severely aromatic? Anyway, their aromas penetrated all the other plastic bags, including the cinnamon. So the cinnamon that I refilled my spice bottle with last week was distinctly cumin/curry flavored. Need I say more? Does ewww suffice?

As I threw out about a dozen bags of spices, my daughter and I were literally rolling on the floor laughing. It's amazing how much havoc one little improperly contained spice can wreak!

We decided the cookies were fine if you didn't expect them to taste cinnamon-y. We renamed them Sugar and Spice Cookies, which we thought was also hilarious. And since they won't hurt anyone, she's taking them to school anyway to see what happens. Some kids like weird stuff. Besides, they might taste great with coffee!

Anyway, there's surely some kind of moral in there, but I don't feel like digging for it right now. Please post a comment if one suggests itself to you!

Recipe is pasted below. They turned out great at high altitude here in CO. They are chewy and bend then break off in your mouth like my favorite kind of ginger snaps: http://www.glueandglitter.com/main/2009/10/02/brown-sugar-cookies/

Vegan Brown Sugar Cookies

1c whole wheat flour
1t baking powder
1/4t salt
1 t cinnamon (sniff it first!)
2/3c light brown sugar
1/4c canola oil
1t vanilla
2T water

Preheat the oven to 350°.
Combine the flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon in a large bowl, mixing well.
In a smaller bowl, mix the sugar, oil, vanilla and water, until everything is dissolved.
Pour the wet mixture into the dry and mix well.
Spoon the dough onto the cookie sheets, flattening each cookie a little.
You can even use cookie cutters to do fun shapes! If you’re going to cut out shapes, you might want to chill the dough for to let it firm up a bit.
Bake for 10-12 minutes.
Make sure you let them cool before serving.
Makes about 1 dozen.