Tuesday, April 07, 2009

When Government Bakes Cookies

It's no secret I work for a US government agency. I'm not telling which one.

I found this in my "food" file, where I keep take-out menus and recipes, and thought it was time to share. It was originally in the Washington Post over 20 years ago.


A Bureaucrat's Guide to Chocolate Chip Cookies

For those government employees and bureaucrats who have problems with standard recipes, here's one that should make the grade—a classic version of the chocolate chip cookies translated for easy reading.

Total Lead Time: 35 minutes.

Input:

1 cup packed brown sugar
.5 cup granulated sugar
.5 cup softened butter
.5 cup shortening (really? do people still bake with shortening?)
2 eggs
1.5 teaspoons vanilla
2.5 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
.5 teaspoon salt
12 ounce package semi-sweet chocolate pieces
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Guidance:
After procurement actions, decontainerize inputs. Perform measurement tasks on a case-by-case basis. In a mixing type bowl, impact heavily on brown sugar, granulated sugar, softened butter and shortening. Coordinate the interface of eggs and vanilla, avoiding an overrun scenario to the best of your skills and abilities.

At this point in time, leverage flour, baking soda and salt into a bowl and aggregate. Equalize with prior mixture and develop intense and continuous liaison among inputs until well coordinated. Associate key chocolate pieces and nuts and execute stirring operations.

Within this time frame, take action to prepare the heating environment for throughput by manually setting the oven baking unit by hand to a temperature of 375 degrees Fahrenheit (190 degrees Celsius). Drop mixture in an ongoing fashion from a teaspoon implement onto an ungreased cookies sheet at intervals sufficient enough apart to permit total and permanent separation of throughputs to the maximum extent practicable under operating conditions.

Position cookie sheet in a bake situation and surveil for 8 to 10 minutes or until cooking action has terminated (and before burning action commences). Initiate coordination of outputs withing the cooling rack function. Containerize, wrap in red tape, and disseminate to authorized staff personnel in a timely and expeditious basis.

Output:
Six dozen official government chocolate-chip cookie units.

From the Washington Post by Susan Russ


My comments are in red.
I've never actually tried this recipe. Maybe someday when I'm not on a diet. If you try it, let me know how the "cookie units" turn out.
 

3 comments:

AM Kingsfield said...

somehow it just doesn't sound like fun.

Lorraine said...

OH! That is just delightful. Must show MAB.

Firefly Nights said...

Cute. I printed a copy for a friend who sells Pampered Chef products and usually bakes/makes something at each event. Thought she might use it for a laugh at one of her presentations.