When it comes to home baking, the idea of convenience has been kidnapped by well-meaning manufacturers who have created a culture of pre-rolled pie crust, shrink-wrapped cookie mix and frozen cudgels of bread dough.
Granted, the pie crusts do save time and the bread dough may serve as training wheels for those tentative about dealing with yeast. (Come on, you can do it!)
But the convenience of refrigerated cookie dough is hardly modern.
Our great-grandmothers knew this with their recipes for icebox cookies, as they once were called. These mostly humble treats got a boost in the 1930s when electric refrigerators became more affordable. Manufacturers trying to drum up business created recipes that required refrigeration, and icebox cookies were rechristened as refrigerator cookies.
When cookies became even more convenient — already baked and packaged! — the appearance of dough in our grocer’s dairy case seemed positively homespun. All well and good, but making your own gives you greater control over ingredients and can be way more fun, depending on what additional ingredients you want to stir in.
How about chopped dried cherries, figs or apricots? Roll the tube of dough in chopped nuts, candy sprinkles or sparkling sugar. Blend in flavors such as cocoa, coconut, flavored chips, even potato chips — whatever strikes your fancy.
Even better, a tube of refrigerator cookies lets you bake as many or as few cookies as you desire. Treat your kids to a half-dozen warm cookies when they walk in the door after school. Or show them how to bake themselves a quick snack. Best of all, involve them in the mixing so they can create their own personal tube of dough, waiting in the fridge.
Great-Grandma would be proud.
