I have happy memories of making cookies with my mother and sister.

My childhood years were spent in the USA, where I was born.  I lived in a small town surrounded by farms; everybody seemed to bake cakes and cookies at home.

I moved to England when I was about 20 and married a few years later.  My husband assured me that he had never had homemade biscuits (cookies), although he had made cakes when his grandmothers.

In the years since I have found that baking cake at home is not unusual in England, but not many people make biscuits.

During my first few years of living here I tried making cookies and taking them to work.  They were generally not well received because most people were used to crisp, dry, crunchy biscuits sold in packages.  When my chewy biscuits were offered, I would sometimes be asked if I had kept them in the oven for a proper length of time.

There is now a much wider choice in biscuits available in the supermarket, and in cafes.  The introduction of American-style coffee shops such as Starbucks has brought the soft, chewy cookie onto the local scene.

I sometimes babysit for my friend’s 2 boys, aged 5 and 9.  They were due to spend the last day of their summer holidays with me, so I thought it would be fun to make cookies.

As I wanted to make real American cookies, I reckoned that Hub Pages would be the best place to find a recipe.  After a look through the choice of Hubs featuring cookies recipes, I decided to use ‘The 5 Best Cookie Recipes for Lunchboxes’ by Marye Audet. 

Her Hub provides a choice of 5 recipes (you probably guessed that from the title).  I ruled out Molasses Cookies and Peanut Butter Cookies as being too American.  Also, her Molasses Cookie recipe includes cayenne pepper or chipotle, which might be too strong a taste for little English boys.

I decided that the boys would enjoy making Chocolate Chip Cookies, and checked to make sure that I had all the required ingredients, so that there would be no disappointment on the day.

When the day duly arrived, it was raining.  How disappointing for the last day of the holidays!  On the plus side, this made cookie making even more attractive, or so I thought.  When I enthused to the boys, ‘how about helping me bake some biscuits!’ the 5 year old said, politely, ‘no thank you’.  The 9 year old said that he would rather play with his PSP (some sort of computerised electric toy that cost loads of money).

I ploughed on, saying that I would bake some biscuits, and if they helped to make them, they could help to eat them.

The 5 year old was steadfast: he did not want to ‘do cooking’.

His older brother decided that he would help.

I can never resist using every possible learning opportunity.  This began with turning on the oven.  Marye’s instructions say “preheat the oven to 350 degrees”.  Now my oven, in common with most English or European ovens, is marked in Centigrade, not Fahrenheit.  So we began by finding a cook book with a conversion table, and finding that the oven would need to be set to 180 degrees, while having a discussion about different ways of measuring the same thing.  (For the information of cooks reading this: I have a fan oven, so adjusted the temperature down to 165 degrees.)

We then had another burst of conversion.  As with most American recipes, Marye gives measurements in cups.  I converted the ½ cup butter and ½ cup shortening into 4 ounces of each.  I used an English product called Cookeen.

As we weighed the butter and Cookeen, my boy assistant expressed surprise about the amount of fat.  He said he had no idea that biscuits contained fat, so I said ‘that’s why eating too many can make you fat. It’s always a good idea to only have one or two.’ (Another learning opportunity.)

The recipe then called for ¾ cup (each) of white and brown sugar.  This provided another surprise – the boy had never before seen brown sugar.  As we took turns putting it through the sieve he noted that the brown sugar has bigger grains.  I said ‘yes, it is a coarser texture’ (more vocabulary).

I put the fat and sugar into my big electric mixer, explaining that the moving blades could be dangerous.  He said that he knew that, he’d seen it on cartoons.  (I didn’t ask for more information, as he usually gives me every gory detail.)

As I added the eggs he remarked that the mixture looked slimy, and wondered if the biscuits would taste good.  I remember wanting to taste cookie dough at every single stage, but I could see that he was not in the least tempted to pop a bit into his mouth.

When I opened the cupboard to get out the flour, the boy asked ‘why is one box labelled P and the other S?’  Very observant, I congratulated before trying to explain the difference between Plain and Self-Raising flour.  (Kids do ask a lot of questions!)

By the time we were measuring the flour, the younger brother arrived in the kitchen and announced that he had changed his mind.  So we broke off for another hand washing session.

Measuring and sifting the flour with the assistance of 2 boys was so messy that I almost forgot the baking soda.  The older boy asked why I hadn’t simply used the Self-Raising flour, and all I could say was that sometimes it is best to just follow instructions.

I was about to get the walnuts out of the cupboard when I had a moment of doubt and asked ‘Is either of you allergic to nuts?’

The younger boy said, ‘I am allergic to nuts.’ In a very positive tone.

I thought that most unlikely, and said that he had been coming to my house since he was a few weeks old, and his mother had never mentioned a nut allergy.  His older brother suggested that perhaps we should phone Mummy to ask.

I said I would get out the packet so that I could tell Mummy what it said on the label.

Before I had even turned around from the cupboard to the work top, Little Brother said, ‘Oh, I eat walnuts!  It’s just nuts I’m allergic to.’

I decided that it was safe to proceed, although if I did not know these children so well I would have phoned for confirmation.

Actually, Marye’s recipe includes pecans, not walnuts.  Pecans are much less common here and I thought the boys might not have tasted them, so substituted walnuts. 

The final ingredient, chocolate chips, produced cries of delight and debate over who should get to add them to the mixture.  I gave each of them 2 chocolate chips to eat, and then got them to take turns gently shaking the packet over the bowl.  (I made sure of cutting only a small hole in the packet, so they didn’t all tumble out at once.)

The older boy stayed in the kitchen to help me spoon the cookie dough onto the baking sheets, and expressed regret about how long it would take me to clean up the kitchen.

Now, I not only owe Marye a big thank you for the recipe, and permission to write about it on this hub, but also for her instruction to line the cookie sheets with parchment or silpat. I don’t know what silpat is, but I used grease-proof paper. I used to hate the part of buttering cookie sheets; I really dislike having sticky fingers. Using grease-proof paper saved a lot of work washing the cookie trays!

The total clean up time was much quicker than it would have been otherwise.

The recipe made about 40 cookies. I thought they turned out well.

The boys liked them, and took some home with them. I think that the older boy may have learned a few new things, and that both of them would want to try baking again.

I've included a link to Marye's Hub below this paragraph.  Based on my experience, I reckon her recipes are pretty fool proof, and will try some more soon.