The quest for the perfect cookie
My obsession with chocolate chip cookies started at an early age. I’m guessing I was in 5th grade when I was designated as the official chocolate chip cookie baker of our family.
My sister, Amy, who was six years older, didn’t have a passion for baking like I did. I remember one time she made chocolate chip cookies, but she accidentally used powdered sugar, rather than flour.
“Can we let Emily make the chocolate chip cookies from now on?” my older brother asked.
As the fourth born and the youngest in a family of over-achievers, I had struggled to find my place. So I eagerly accepted my appointment as the official chocolate chip cookie baker of the family.
In fact, I made it my mission in life to perfect the chocolate chip cookie. We didn’t have Google back then to research what might make a cookie soft or chewy, what might make it puff up or spread out. I only had the advice of my foremothers and trial and error to complete my research.
My obsession grew when I was in college. My first week on campus at the University of Illinois, I walked past a cookie store that had a fan wafting the smell of warm chocolate chip cookies onto the sidewalk as hungry college students walked by. That scent might be more accurately described as the smell of home, comfort and joy.
I walked into that cookie store and immediately applied for a job.
For the next four years, I worked part-time at Cookies, etc., in addition to several other part-time jobs.
I loved being surrounded by cookies, smelling cookies, decorating large cookies and basically handing out joy to the steady stream of people who came in to buy cookies. I dreamed of owning my own bakery someday.
When I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease in 2016, my cookie dreams were shattered.
The gluten-free flour options back then were few, expensive and required all kinds of combinations to try to create something that tasted as good as regular flour. I mourned the realization that I might never have a delicious, warm chocolate chip cookie again. But in the years since then, as gluten-free flour options have improved and become more affordable, I’ve been back in the kitchen testing recipes.
I love not only baking chocolate chip cookies again, but sharing them with other people who can’t eat gluten.
