Friday, November 16, 2012

What can I bake that says USA in a good way?


In order to understand what is going on at Sophie's kindergarten I take my camera every few days and take pictures of the new flyers on the walls. Then I go home and translate them using Google Translate. I look a little ridiculous taking close up pictures of the Kindergarten's walls, but not as ridiculous as when I have no idea what's going on. Also, somehow I feel that when you embarrass yourself in another country it's not for real.  Anyway, I translated a flyer today that said the Kindergarten will have a booth at the town Christmas Market selling cookies and they want people to volunteer to bake cookies. All the proceeds go to the school.

First of all, I was excited because it's cool there will be a Christmas Market in our town.

Secondly,   I was wary because I have had an unsuccessful baking experience already with the Kindergarten. I posted about it on my Family blog but, I'm also going to copy and paste it here, at the bottom of this post. Or actually, I think I will make it its own post right after this one. Anyway, if you are not familiar with it, I recommend you read it here now so you know why I was wary. Go. Read.

Okay, I noticed on the list that people had signed up for un-normal things like Angel Eyes, and Lebkuchen. I actually know what Lebkuchen is but Angels Eyes...I do not know your "angel eyes." When I googled edible angel eyes, this came up, which is actually better than I was fearing. But I don't think that's quite it.

Determined not to be that 'Merican family I pinned down the Kindergarten director to find out how fancy these cookies are supposed to be.She said, not so fancy. Nothing special. They just can't be cream-filled-- By which I think she meant they can't be refrigerated.

No problem. I don't even know how to make cream-filled cookies. So now the question is what do I make?I can tell you are as riveted by this question as I am.

So, my first thought was: peanut butter cookies with a chocolate kiss in the  middle. Peanut butter is so America and so delicious. Then I could name them something charming in German, like "Christmas acorns" or "angel eyes." (The more I think about angel eyes the more creeped out I get. What ARE those things?)

But then I thought, well, chocolate chip cookies are pretty America too. And that would be cheaper to make.

And then I thought, you know what's so America, and so delicious, and I bet they haven't had much before, and so cheap? Brownies. From a box.

So in conclusion, I kind of want to just make some brownies, which I wouldn't do for a US bake sale because that is kind of trash, but here maybe it would not be trash? Maybe it would be a delight? Or maybe it would be trash. What do you think?

Also, while you are thinking about cookies, my ward is having a cookie exchange, and I need a good cookie recommendation so that I wow the Bishop and get my tithing reduced because that's the way things work.

Okay, that is all.

5 comments:

Nathan said...

1) I took the liberty to dig deeper about your Angel eyes and this is what I found: Engelsaugen.

2) In Berlin we had a bake sale when I was a boy and I (or maybe mom?) made snickerdoodles because they are my favorite and the Germans LOVED them.

3) Super jealous of the Christmas market. That was/is one of my favorite things about Europe.

Lisa Lou said...

Basically, anything that is super chocolatey or super sweet is super Americano! I like the peanut butter cookie idea. Those are do iconic. As are chocolate chip cookies!

Kathy Haynie said...

I'm with Nathan. Snickerdoodles for the kindergarten event AND the cookie exchange.

Lynne Kohler and Theresa Walters said...

They went crazy for chocolate chip cookies in Honduras.

Katie Lewis said...

I am still laughing about making the PB + Hershey kiss cookies and calling them angel eyes.