so i finally baked something

The more I think about this, the more embarrassing it is, but it is one of those "better late than never" things.

For the first time ever in my life, I baked something.

This is almost as embarrassing as admitting I didn't fry anything in a pan nor so much as cracked a single egg until my forties. But at least I've been frying eggs along with other foods for years, so I actually do know how to cook.

However, it took until the fifth decade of my life before I finally opened an oven to actually do some real baking with one.

What did I bake? Cookies.

No, I didn't make the dough. I acquired the ready-to-bake type.

Only one part of the process can ruin the batch, and only because a specific instruction is not mentioned on the package.

Step 1. Get a baking sheet. It does not need to be lubricated with cooking spray.

Step 2. Break apart the dough like the package says, putting each piece 2 inches apart from each other on the sheet.

Step 3. Preheat oven to 350F.

Step 4. When oven is heated, put the cookies in, bake for 10 minutes.

Step 5. After 10 minutes, turn the oven off, open oven door, wait 10 minutes for the cookies to firm up. THIS RIGHT HERE is where most people get cookies wrong. After baking, the batch is still soft. The rookie mistake is thinking you need to bake longer. No. Baking longer will burn the batch and ruin it. All you have to do is just wait another 10 minutes after baking, and the cookies will firm up properly on their own.

And that's it, done. Take the cookies out and eat.

The reason it is embarrassing to admit it took me so long to finally bake something is because of how stupidly easy these things are to make. This is basically no more difficult than heating something in a microwave. The only difference is that baking takes longer because you have to preheat the oven and the overall baking process is slower.

How much time does it take to do all this? About a half-hour. Preheat + bake + cooling all put together takes about that long.

Is any money saved by doing this?

Yes, absolutely. Fresh baked cookies cost less than prepackaged crap, and way less than bakery cookies.

And, obviously, fresh baked cookies taste best.

The entire reason I decided to bake a batch of cookies is because nobody in my local area can make a genuinely good tasting cookie. It doesn't matter if the cookies are prepackaged, baked in a grocery store, or baked in some upscale highfalutin bakery. Everyone around here gets it wrong.

In other words, frustration was the reason I finally decided to bake something. Since everybody around here does cookies wrong, the only way to get it right was to do it myself.

Did my cookies come out correctly? Yes. Did they taste good? Also a yes. They were about as good as I could get for a ready-to-bake batch.

The Big Question however was this: Were they better than the garbage sold locally?

Yes. I finally got a cookie that tasted right.

I will at some point go the mile and actually make the dough myself. But for now, at least I know I can buy ready-to-bake, chuck it in the oven and get something decent. Job done.

Published 2025 Nov 11