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“Yes, we were just discussing different ways to market them. Once we see if it’ll work, I’ll post them on the website and see if we get an order or two.” I slid my arm around Eli’s back while my dad took a bite.
“Oh, these are good. Like always. What were your new ideas?” Dad asked. I explained my idea about the boxes made of cookies and packing them with a wooden mallet.
“That’s an excellent idea. I’ve seen other hard candy or chocolate come with a mallet to break it with, but I’ve never seen a gift box made out of cookies that holds cookies.”
“It was Randy’s idea,” Eli said and gave me a gentle squeeze.
“Not all of it,” I said, and kissed his cheek. “I’m the flavor genius, Eli comes up with the fun stuff, and I let him do what he wants.” He met my eyes and smoldered at me while my dad was busy choosing another cookie.
Ignoring the fact I was talking about more than baking, I asked Dad a multitude of questions about the cookie he was eating. By the time he’d eaten three, I had a pretty good idea about things I’d need to change and other things that were perfect. After Dad left with a few cookies for Mom to try, we got busy wrapping up the cookies we’d baked to freeze them.
“We could start decorating these,” Eli said as he wrapped an aluminum pan of cookies with cellophane.
“It’s a little early. I don’t want the icing to discolor or crack before Valentine’s Day. You do realize we’re going to have towork on these the last weekend of January,” I said as I stored the last of them in the freezer.
“I figured as much. No problem. I’ll make sure I have that weekend off and we can do the marathon cookie fest. At least we’ll have these done early. The other cookies aren’t as complicated, and it’s not like I mind having a weekend alone with my hot boyfriend.” He smirked, and I laughed.
I watched as he put away the last of the supplies we’d used, then moved to the couch. “What do we have planned for tomorrow?” I asked.
“I vote for a nice day at home.” Eli snuggled in and I shifted so we could both lie down.
“I like the way you think.” After I broke my leg just before Christmas last year, we’d done a lot of sitting and even more talking. We knew each other so much better now, and I felt stupid for ever thinking anything bad about Eli. I’d considered him to be competition at the cookie swap when all along he had a crush on me that I was too blind to see. When his roommate Rick started dating Shelly, we were both happy for them. But we also wanted more of the time alone we’d enjoyed while I was injured. Having him move in might have seemed fast to some, but to me it felt wrong every time he wasn’t here.
“I love you,” I whispered and kissed the side of his head.
“I love you too. Now, what should we do for dinner?” he asked.
“Takeout sounds good to me,” I said. He squeezed me tight before throwing his leg over mine.
“As long as I don’t have to move, we can have whatever you want,” he said into my chest making us both laugh.
Five
Eli
The next morning, we both woke up later than usual and lazed around on the couch until noon. Finally, Randy sat up. “I want to try to make one of the cookie boxes and see if it works.”
“I knew there was no way you’d make it through the day without baking,” I said with a kiss to his cheek. “Come on, let’s see what it says online about what type of dough we should use.” He jumped up and hurried to one of the kitchen stools and patted the one next to him.
“It seems like I remember them doing something like that on GBBO,” he mumbled as he used his phone to search.
He looked up and was deep in thought for a moment before he turned to look at me. “It might have been on a different baking competition. I remember seeing it though. I found a fewdifferent ideas.” He showed me what he meant, and we decided to go ahead and try.
“Might as well find out now if it’ll work or not. Have you made a gingerbread house before?” I asked.
“No. I’m not a fan of gingerbread, and there’s so much work to build one. Plus, I wouldn’t want to eat it after all that work, and I’d hate that it wasn’t eaten.”
“My grandmother has a great recipe that isn’t as spicy as some of them are. Or as hard. But I’d still take a sugar cookie over gingerbread,” I said as I studied the links he’d sent to me.
“I think we should try these two ways. One, we’ll bake the pieces in big squares, and assemble them into a box with icing, so the box ends up deep enough for filling. Then we’ll need to figure out if we seal the lid or leave it open. But if we’re including a mallet then I suppose it should be sealed. Two, we cut more squares and leave the lid and the bottom solid. But for the sides, and this will mean twice as many squares, we cut a smaller square out of the center of each so it leaves just the edge, then stack them using icing to hold them together,” he said and waited for my reaction.
“I think the second one will be stronger, but the space inside would be smaller. And I agree, let’s try them both.” We mixed up some of the batter that was slightly different than our regular sugar cookie dough. Randy took out a ruler and made a pattern for the solid boxes, then using a square container, we cut the bigger square shapes and used a smaller container to cut out the centers for the second box.
“I’m glad we’re only making one each. If we go through all this trouble and the dough is too soft, or if the measurements are off . . . well, I’d be really pissed if we wasted a bunch of ingredients and time,” he said and double-checked his measurements.
“It really is more complicated than I thought it would be. There’re so many variables.” If the dough was too thick, too thin, or too soft it wouldn’t hold up. It also had to be brittle enough to break with a wooden mallet and still be edible.
“We have a little time to play with it, and if it doesn’t work, we’ll just use the packaging we already have lined up.” Randy loved using new ways to package our products, and I was never as thankful for that fact as I was right now since he’d ordered way ahead.
