Grandma's Sugar Cookies

 One quiet Sunday afternoon, after having just finished a delicious roasted chicken meal that my mom had cooked for us, my cousin Lillian and I were sprawled lazily across my bed. Lillian had come over to spend the weekend with me, because she was “so tired” of her younger pesky brothers and needed a break. I have no other siblings, so I was very pleased to have her come over, because it does not work at all to gossip or have a manicure party by one’s lonesome self. However, we had since run out of interesting topics to discuss and were currently feeling quite bored. 

 “What should we do?” wondered Lillian in a huff while also examining her newly painted purple fingernails. 

 “I’m not sure,” I said and shrugged my shoulders. “You thirsty? I mean, I know we just had lunch not too long ago, but there is blackberry sparkling water in the fridge if you want any.”

 “Ew,” Lillian replied, wrinkling up her nose. “No thanks.” Suddenly, her eyes gleamed and a big grin spread across her face. “But I am craving something sweet! Emily, you never served me any dessert. How rude of you!” She playfully poked my shoulder as she reproved me. 

 I rolled my eyes. “Poor girl,” I answered her sarcastically. “Ok, what do you want?”

“Well, I think it would be super fun (and delicious) to make Grandma’s Sugar Cookies as a treat!” replied Lillian, her eyes still gleaming in excitement. “What do you say to that?”

“Right now? Make them from scratch? I’ve never made cookies before in my life!” I exclaimed, feeling very surprised at such a random suggestion. 

 Lillian grabbed my arms and pulled me up from the bed. “Oh, don’t be such a scaredy-cat! I’ve seen grandma make those things lots of times before. And if your mom helps us, then it will be easy!”

 I begrudgingly followed her down the stairs and into the kitchen. It wasn’t as if I thought this idea was such a terrible one, but since I’m such a non-baker, I honestly cannot tell the difference between a spatula and a mixing bowl. Ok yes, I can, but I’m just not comfortable when it comes to anything cooking or baking related. So, if Lillian wanted to bake cookies all afternoon, I really wasn’t sure as to what I was going to do. In fact, I straight up told her, “Well, have fun, dear cousin. Tell me when the cookies are finished, and then I will do a taste test for you!”

 Shaking her head of curls, Lillian said, “Nope. I want you to help me.” After that, she turned from me and called out to my mom, “Hey aunty! Do you mind if I borrow your kitchen for a while?” To mom’s question of “whatever for?”, Lillian told her about what we were planning on doing. Mom of course thought that was such a brilliant idea! 

 “Of course! Help yourself to anything you need in the kitchen!”, she offered. And so, after donning an apron that she had found, Lillian began preparing to make cookies. She placed a mixing bowl on top of the countertop, and then started searching for eggs in the fridge. 

 “Um, Lillian?” I asked, “don’t you need to read an actual recipe before you begin baking?”

 “Of course not, silly!”, answered my very confident cousin. “As I told you earlier, I’ve seen grandma make these things many times in the past. All I need is eggs, milk, butter…you know. The usual things.” After informing me of this, she then started making the cookies. Once they were mixed up, she rolled the dough onto the countertop, and here is where I was finally able to help. I grasped the cookie cutter and cut out three dozen snowflake-shaped cookies. Next, with a spatula, I lifted them onto a prepared baking sheet pan. After ten minutes, there lay before our happy eyes, perfectly baked golden cookies. Once they had cooled, we then proceeded to frost them with red and green icing, making those snowflake cookies look quite festive indeed. However, after we had each taken a bite from one, I definitely decided that something about them tasted…off. “Lillian, what did you do wrong?” I questioned bluntly. “These don’t taste like how grandma’s do. I mean, they taste ok, but they also taste blander than hers. No offence,” I quickly added, realizing how rude my criticism sounded. 

 A little frown crossed between Lillian’s eyes. “Yeah, I know what you mean,” she answered. “Hmm, let me think. I mixed together the butter, eggs, flour, and sugar. And then I added baking powder, baking soda, salt, and vanilla. What else could there be to put in them?” 

 At that moment, mom entered the kitchen again and exclaimed enthusiastically,” Wow! What beautiful cookies!” She grabbed one and popped it into her mouth. “Yum. Very good too! Good job, girls!” she praised us between bites. 

 I gestured towards Lillian. “Praise her. She did all of the hard work. I just cut them out.”

 “Aunty,” Lillian interjected, “can you help us figure out why they don’t taste the same as grandma’s though? Hers taste more…zippy or something.”

 Mom smiled as she finished eating her cookie. “Yep. She has a secret ingredient that she adds to her cookies. She refuses to tell anyone what is it though.”

Lillian’s shoulders slumped in discouragement. “Aw shucks. I was hoping I could get them to taste just like hers, but if she refuses to say what her secret ingredient is, then how can I?” she sadly wondered. 

“Well, kiddo,” answered mom, “Don’t worry. I can still help you. One day, when she wasn’t properly paying any attention to me, I happened to see her put a teaspoon of cayenne pepper into the dough.” 

 Our mouths dropped open in shock. “Cayenne pepper?” we both shouted in almost unison surprise.

 “No wonder her cookies always taste a bit spicy!”, I added. “But why haven’t we noticed any little red specks in them?”

“No one has ever noticed anything because the pretty frosting covers up any bit of red that may show,” mom said.

 Lillian and I looked at each other in perplexion and giggled. “Cayenne pepper in cookies? That’s funny!”, Lillian observed.

“Try adding it to your next batch of cookies and see how they turn out!” was mom's advice as she grabbed another cookie.

 Full of curiosity as to whether this new piece of information would actually work for her, Lillian resumed bustling away in the kitchen; this time adding cayenne pepper to the rest of the dry ingredients in the mixing bowl. Once more she took out a pan of beautifully baked cookies from the oven. This time though, there was a faint colour of red to them. Once again we iced and decorated and tasted them. Except for this time, instead of finding fault, I shouted, “Lillian! You did it! Now these taste just like how grandma’s always do!”

 Excitement stole across her face as Lillian squished my waist in a huge hug. “Yay, success!” she squealed loudly.

 I backed quickly away from her and asked, “I wonder why she doesn’t want anyone knowing what her secret ingredient is though?”

 “If we ask her, she’ll wonder how we know, and then she might get mad at your mom for telling us,” Lillian replied thoughfully. “I guess the fact that we know her secret is our secret now,” she added with a sly smirk.