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Betty Crocker Recipe
by Brian Honeycutt |
One Person’s Account of an Unusual Betty Crocker Recipe
Here’s a story a friend of mine told me a few weeks ago: My friend, Sarah, wanted to make something extra special for her Grandfather’s birthday. She knew that he always enjoyed trying new foods, but that it might be hard to find a recipe for something that he hadn’t tried before. She wanted something really unique and flavorful, but she didn’t really know where to start looking. “Well,” she thought “I guess I’ll try looking at an old Betty Crocker recipe first.” This didn’t seem like it would reveal anything particularly exotic, but it would be a good place to start.
So Sarah started rifling through her collection of old Betty Crocker recipes. She sorted through recipes on bun cakes, biscuits, and cookies of all sorts and sizes, but all of the recipes called for traditional ingredients and resulted in traditional foods. Sarah wanted something unique, something obscure. After a while she came upon one recipe that seemed different than all the others. “The Betty Crocker recipe for Unusual and Exotic Spice Cookies”. “Bingo!” she thought.
The recipe said that – if followed properly – the cook will make the most unusual and delectable cookies they have ever tried. So Sarah went to the grocery store to collect the things she needed. The recipe called for simple things like flour, sugar, and chocolate, but it also called for Pad Thai seasoning, a teaspoon of yogurt, chili peppers, and a few small bits of pepperoni! Sarah thought these were some really weird things coming from a Betty Crocker recipe, but she followed the directions anyway.
With the necessary ingredients in tow, Sarah went home to begin preparing the unusual and exotic spice cookies. The cookies began in the usual way by combining eggs, flour, milk, and water in a bowl. Then the seasonings, spices, and bits of pepperoni were to be added. Then the cookies were to be poured in desirable shapes onto a cookie sheet to be cooked in an oven set to 350 degrees for half an hour. Then came something really unusual: mid way through cooking, the recipe called for slowly pouring the yogurt into the half-baked cookies in a spiral pattern. Not only did the Betty Crocker recipe demand a spiral pattern, but the pattern must only be counter-clockwise. At this point Sarah decided that the cookies were so unusual already that she may as well follow through on the specific directions.
While the cookies were baking, the phone rang. Sarah’s mother was on the other end of the receiver. When her mother asked her what she was doing, Sarah replied “Oh I’m just making some cookies from Granddad’s birthday.” “It’s something really strange though. I hope he likes it.” Sarah’s mother asked her what she was making, so she told her “The Betty Crocker Recipe for Unusual and Exotic Spice Cookies”. Sarah’s mother was silent for a moment and then she burst into laughter. “But that’s a recipe I made up for school when I was a child!” her mother shouted.
Sarah was dumbfounded when her mother told her the story of the recipe she was using. Apparently Sarah’s mother was required to create a fictional recipe for Home Economics class many years ago, and the recipe Sarah was using for her cookies was the result! Sarah thought about throwing the cookies away, sure they couldn’t possibly taste good. In the end, however, she decided she may as well finish the cookies and see what they were like.
The oven timer dinged, and Sarah took the cookies out to cool. After they finished cooling, Sarah slowly reached out to try one of the weird looking and oddly named treats. She steeled herself against what could be an awful taste, but when she let the cookie roll gently over her taste buds she discovered that all of the different flavors made an exquisite combination that was unlike anything she had ever tasted. When she gave the cookies to her Grandfather, he was equally delighted by their unusual, but delicious taste. So it just goes to show that although you should usually follow the Betty Crocker recipe, a lot can be accomplished when you simply try something new and unusual.
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