Beat it.

I had an unexpected bit of fun whilst I was baking this week – not that being in the kitchen messing around with butter, sugar and flour isn’t already fun, obviously. But an intially irritating moment ended up reminding me about the enjoyment very simple things can bring.

I’d been planning the cookies for most of the day at work, as you do. I knew I had the ingredients, I knew I had the time to chill the dough for long enough before baking it. It was so on. Once I was back home I merrily weighed out my butter, sugar and spices, placed them in my mixing bowl and prepared to inflict some serious hand-mixer action on them.

Or not.

I can only assume the fuse in the plug has gone, because despite my best efforts (unplugging it then plugging it back in…and maybe a few verbal threats) the bloody thing wouldn’t go. It didn’t even make that noise that electrical appliances make when they’re trying to work, they really want to, but it’s just so hard. Nope. My mixer was, for want of a better word, buggered.

Which really left me with no option but to beat the stuff together myself; the other option was separating butter, two kinds of sugar and various ground spices and returning them to their respective packaging. I’m obsessive, but even I draw the line somewhere. Thankfully I’d softened the butter beforehand, so was only slightly out of breath by the time I’d produced a butter-sugar combination which was to my satisfaction.

Thank goodness I hadn’t been planning to make meringues.