#19 on the life list (a.k.a. Cookie Challenge)

A while back I wrote about starting a life list. Back then I had only six items on my list, or perhaps only six that I was willing to share at the time. I'm up to nineteen items on my list now.

Number nineteen started brewing this past Sunday. I was having a wonky day. I dropped a thirty dollar cake in its box onto our living room floor and had a bit of a freak out over it. (The cake tasted fine that evening. It just didn't look as beautiful as it had in the store.) Anyway, after Hubby did his best at comforting me, making me laugh, and talking about how my freak out had very little to do with the cake face plant and more to do with other things, we decided to go to The Annex for a stroll.

I just love that stretch of Bloor St W! Music stores, book stores, clothing stores, furniture, food, and coffee all in one lovely five block strip. We went into BMV Books to poke around the shelves for kitchen design ideas. There's nothing like a little book store browsing to perk up my mood. Before diving in to the architecture and design books Hubby and I browsed the cookbooks. Hubby found this:



I love to bake! This book is like a gold mine for me! Since it was only nine dollars, it felt like an extra sweet deal. We bought it (along with two kitchen books).

I took a closer look at the book once I got it home. The first sixty-five pages is dedicated to discussion on ingredients, tools, technique, storage, and presentation.




The remaining 160 or so pages is recipes. Everything from fancy to savoury.




I was reading up on ingredients when our friend arrived for dinner on Sunday night. We started talking about the book, my love of all things related to baking, and it dawned on me that I could actually make every cookie in the book. Our friend pointed out that I'd better start an exercise program if I didn't want to gain 100 lbs in the process. That is an unfortunate side effect of having a sweet tooth and loving to bake.

After sleeping on the idea for a few nights, I've decided to take on my Cookie Challenge. I'm going to make every single cookie recipe in The Cookie Book - that's over 200 different cookies, according to the book. The Cookie Challenge is now number nineteen on the life list.

I do not think I will make the cookies in the order they are in the book. There's an entire kids' cookie section, so I'll have to work my way through those as occasions arise.

Train cookies:




Name cookies that could be used as place cards:




As a means to gather opinions on the cookies and avoid out growing my clothes, I shall share generously with co-workers, friends, and neighbours. One of my co-workers is already quite excited about this. Perhaps a little rating card will be developed to track my results.

The big question is: what cookie will be first?