Stove-Top Cookies

My roommate, Becky, and I quickly realized that we have a lot in common; a significant common interest is that we both love to bake. One small problem: our apartment's kitchenette is lacking an oven. But why should that stop us? Yesterday afternoon we had nothing to do and both really wanted to bake, so we looked up how to bake with a stove and made the best of what we had. However, by the time we decided to bake, our small town supermarket had closed (as it was past noon on a Sunday...) and we had no baking supplies in our apartment. We found a convenience store just up the street and searched for what we could find--flour, sugar cubes, eggs, butter, and a chocolate bar. The goal was to make simple chocolate chip cookies...or something that could at least pass for them. We had no baking powder/soda, no measuring cups, no whisk/beater, no vanilla, sugar cubes instead of granulated sugar and definitely no oven. But what is life without some challenges?

Thankfully, Becky and I have both made cookies a number of times before; we added the ingredients together, tasting the dough along the way and working it until it was a reasonable consistency. We used some water to make a simple syrup to melt the rock solid sugar cubes, and guessed as best as we could at most of the measurements. We used a fork/spoon instead of a whisk and a pot as a bowl--I'd say we are pretty resourceful. To actually bake the cookies, we placed spoonfuls of dough on a medium-heated pan and covered them to cook for 5 minutes, at which point we flipped them (with our spatula-inspired fork) and let them cook for about 5 more minutes. I admit, they were a bit like sweet mini-pancakes. Still, people ate them and actually commented on how good they were! (We are not totally convinced, but we'll take it).

After a mostly successful first attempt, we are looking forward to many more creative stove-top cookies over the coming weeks! Who knows, maybe we'll try some brownies while we are at it, too...