Hi Ho,
For the festive season we’re getting our pinnies on and heating up our ovens to start baking scrumptious Christmas cookies
for all our friends.
Yes, for a short time only the cogs of the Albion Cookie Factory shall turn and dough shall be kneaded. Ahh! That sweet aroma is almost stroking ones olfactory sense.
December 18, 2007
December 14, 2007
Baking Day: White Chocolate & Cranberry
Fun time was over, work time had begun. The melancholy of Ella Fitzgerald was infusing the room, the oven was on, they were off. After a few minutes of not knowing which road to follow, brick-sized blocks of butter were thrown into stockpots, sugars were mixed, eggs beaten. The first batch went in and came out, thirty more followed. They each had a precise role. One was dolloping, one keeping an eye on the oven, the third one was managing the cooling racks.
They baked and baked until the small hours of the morning, bathed in the light of the moon, only stopping to keep hydrated and wipe their beaten brows. The heat of the kitchen was sending them to places they'd never dared to venture before. The repetitive nature of the task was making them delirious. One lost the gift of speech while the others were forgetting the rules of social decency and swearing like fishmongers from the darkest suburbs of San Jose.
As time went on, the tannins were going to the bakers' heads and they began to discuss the existential musings of the greatest French Thinker, Sartres himself. Caught in the sweet Beaujolais-induced delirium, they commenced a formal Fox trot. Not only was flour going to their heads and minds but also into the bowl with other ingredients.
Packing Cookies
So all our cookies are baked and packing and delivery has begun. Everyone here at the Factory chipped in. Making tea, uncorking wine, cutting ribbon, stacking cookies and writing labels until hands were sore. They look delicious and not one of them has disappeared, yet. We hope you like them.
Oh yeah, almost forgot. Do you have any of the secret cookies out there?
December 13, 2007
Gosh! Secret Cookies
Surprise!
We have made some secret cookies and hidden them out there for a few lucky people. Who they’ll be going to even we at the factory do not know. How tremendously exciting! You’ll be the envy of all your friends and neighbours. Especially if you find the one and only Happy Accident. Enjoy.
Look out for:
Me lost me cookie at the disco
Download 09_me_lost_me_cookie_at_the_disco.mp3
http://www.flickr.com/photos/silverstein/1473892606/
found by English Tim & Spanish Bob
They're Coming!
Good Day!
O.K. So we’ve been hard at work becoming cookie baking machines, but finally your cookies are ready and should be on their way to you as you read this. We’ve mixed them up so you’ll all get something different from the five recipes. Scrumptious.
We hope you all enjoy your cookies. Breath them in deeply. Savour the scent. Then scoff the lot and have a very tasty Christmas.
Merry Christmas
December 12, 2007
Cookie's Fortune
by English Tim & Spanish Bob
December 11, 2007
It’s here! It’s arrived! It’s the first bake day!
It’s a jolly exciting day for the Albion Cookie Factory. Both Camille and Lucy will be opening up their kitchens today.
Camille’s team have decided to express their excitement through the medium of art…
by Natalie
What’s the way the cookie crumbles?
They say “that’s the way the cookie crumbles”. (‘They’ being people who speak in idioms.)
Apparently it means that ‘that bad things sometimes happen and there is nothing you can do to prevent it, so it is not worth becoming upset about it’.
But I wondered where it comes from. And is it equally bad when any cookie crumbles, or are some worse than others?
So I decided to do an experiment. I took three different cookies and, in controlled conditions, ‘crumbled’ them (using a claw hammer). Well, actually, I tested two of your American cookies – chocolate chip and ginger – and one good old British plain digestive biscuit.
Fig.1 – The three test subjects. L to R, choc chip cookie, ginger cookie, digestive biscuit.
The results
Chocolate chip cookie
The chocolate chip cookie was the first under the hammer. As you can see it exploded violently all over the kitchen of our Manchester office. The cookie splintered into a few shards of brittle biscuit mixture, but most of the volume evaporated into a fine dust. Directly under the impact zone, all that remained was a small compressed mound of compacted crumbs.
Fig. 2 & Fig. 3 – The violent aftermath of the choc chip cookie test.
Ginger cookie
The ginger cookie went next. Again, remnants were dispersed over a large radius around the impact site. However the ginger cookie retained its integrity, with large pieces holding their shape. In figure 5 below you can observe larger crumbs around ground zero, and the strange skin-like artefact left directly under the hammer head. A much cleaner result than the chocolate chip, but still quite theatrically crumbled.
Fig. 4 & Fig. 5 – The even explosion of the ginger cookie.
Digestive biscuit
Last in the test came the plain Digestive biscuit. Physically having a larger dimension, the Digestive was thinner than both cookies tested, and so seemed to gain little advantage. *
An amazing result! The digestive barley flinched, keeping all its component parts inside the test area. Five large chunks of the biscuit remained unmarked and fit for consumption. Only the direct target area sustained real damage, and even the crumbs there constrained themselves to a well-mannered pile.
* The digestive was also observed to have a slightly wetter, denser texture. Good on you.
Fig. 6 & Fig. 7 – The tidy unfussy result of the digestive test.
Conclusions
1.The cliché ‘that’s the way the cookie crumbles’ does seem rather appropriate. Rapidly crumbling cookies is a messy business, requiring a lengthy clean-up operation.
2.We recommend that the cliché be modified, to suggest a scale of impeding badness (so you can more adequately prepare yourself to not get too upset about it):
‘That’s how the ginger cookie crumbles’ to suggest a mildly alarming event.
‘That’s how the chocolate chip cookie crumbles’ for a heinous disaster.
3.If you’re made of sterner stuff, use the phrase ‘that’s how the digestive biscuit crumbles’. Which means that not much will ruffle your feathers, so there’ll be very little to resist getting upset about.
by Glyn
December 10, 2007
It all kicks off tomorrow..
Yes, the first two teams are getting ready for their bake-off tomorrow. We have the Crafty Camille and co baking White Chocolate and Cranberry cookies and the Lovely Lucy and team baking Raisin and Hazelnut. There’s already competition in the air with whose team will wear the best apron. So far Amanda who is in Camille’s kitchen is in the lead with this beauty. That gal, she got class!
Posted by Natalie.
December 07, 2007
Recipe for computer cookies
By Spanish Bob
December 06, 2007
December 05, 2007
Cookie Man
There are many things
to say about this cookie costume. Most interesting is the chap inside
it. What’s that thing on his head? Why does he look so
bored?! Why’s he holding his hand up like that?! Look at his
moustache! Look how short his legs are!!!
By Lucy