A Cautionary Tale

Mmmmm, sugar cookies. Also mmmmmm, sugar cookie dough, so good it's put in ice cream. Every memory I have of my childhood that involved making cookies includes my sister as the queen of eating the raw dough. With three kids my mom would have two beaters and a bowl, one piece for each kid. My sister was oldest, biggest, meanest and most desirous of the sugary raw goodness (for accuracy let it be known that while Sharon is still the oldest she is neither the biggest or meanest--we have no more mean amongst the Smith Sibs). Part of making cookies is a few tastes of the dough. A caution on eating raw cookie dough though....

Sunday was a family party to celebrate Jenna's birthday. Instead of a cake she wanted a giant sugar cookie. On Saturday Blaire and I made the dough (very good and easy recipe from Sur La Table cookbook: 2 1/4 cups flour, 3/4 cups sugar, little salt, 2-3 egg yolks, little vanilla, two sticks of butter). Not having time to make the giant cookie-cake we put the dough in the fridge overnight.

When it was time to make the giant cookie on Sunday the dough was too hard to roll out so I left it out on the counter for a while. Once soft we began to play around with making the giant cookie when Jenna decided she would rather have a bunch of "J" cookies. So we rolled out the dough and began pressing "J's".

As we worked and re-rolled our dough it got softer and softer. Instead of refridgerating some and using as we needed it I just kept rolling and cutting, rolling and cutting.

At one point early in the process Blaire snagged a little extra piece of dough--no shock. And smacked her lips with a giant, "MmmmmmmmMMMM!" Much later in the process I proceeded to do the same thing. I grabbed a small piece of dough, about the size of a dime in diameter and popped it in my mouth, gave a few chews and swallowed.

BAD IDEA!

I started choking and gagging. The dough had gotten so warm that the butter and flour combo made it stick in my throat. I proceeded to gag and cough uncontrollably until the dough ball moved slightly and I could breath--pant would be a better word. I swallowed warm water to melt the butter and for several minutes stood over the sink gagging, coughing and trying to dislodge the butter-dough ball from my throat. I even pushed my finger way down my throat to try to pull it up but could not grab it--though I did spread it and flatten it. After several minutes and lots of warm water I felt I was no longer choking and was able to sit and catch my breath.

Once I knew I could breath I calmed down a little, but it was still a frightening for me--and probably the girls as nothing ruins a cookie making project like Dad choking and gagging. Had the dough ball been bigger the situation could have gotten a lot worse.

The obvious moral of the story is, enjoy your raw cookie dough, but make sure it is somewhat chilled and not prone to stick on the way down other wise instead of baking cookies you could be tossing them....or worse.


DCS 02222010