When I Am Fixated, I Get Obsessed. My Focus Is Disturbing, Even To Me

I'm at it again. I couldn't get it out of my mind, and when I learned someone in my office loves molasses cookies, I marked it in my neurons that I need to make Molasses Slabs one more time (or at least attempt them). The recipe at the Sherburne Big M has been handed down for generations and they only make them on Tuesdays, often selling out before anyone can get some.

So, I went back into my research mode and while searching, I kept coming back to my blogs over the years. I never saw the comments left in previous years, which inspired me to keep on searching. People, even on the West Coast, want to know what the recipe is, so I'm back at it. I found one recipe for the slabs written in 1899 from a publication from Masonic Lodge matrons. It's just a lumped paragraph, with only the ingredients and many assumptions of how everything goes together.

I read many recipes for hermits, too, but I want a slab and am obsessed with finding the right ingredients to go at it once again.

I didn't have all the ingredients for the final recipe I put together - a combination of several (without as much molasses that the 1899 one used) and even added some strange ingredients I read about online (crystalized ginger turns out to be sugarized ginger and at $11.99 for a small bottle, I opted to mix sugar and ginger to get he same effect).

This recipe calls for a cooling in the fridge for a couple of hours, too, so the dough sets.

But I didn't have everything, and as I watched Syracuse lose to Kansas, I became more and more fixated that tonight was going to be another attempt. I was wearing my XXXL sweatpants for relaxing (all I had on after the shower) and put on a coat. I got the cloves, some butter, the ginger, and the all spice. I also had to walk very peculiar because my pants were falling down (as these sweats always do) and it would not have been a pretty sight. I am sure security was watching me from the second I went in the store. Every time I found a new item, I had to put them down and be sure to hike the sweats up as high as I could. I also kept one hand in a coat pocket to hold them up from inside.

I made it out without an embarrassing moment, but excited by my achievement, I had to tell the teller everything: about Slabs, about my quest, about the ingredients, about finding a close recipe from 1899, but leaving out the fact that I didn't have underwear on and I was holding desperately to keep my circus pants up.

I don't know why I get obsessed like this, but I can't focus on anything when I get an idea in my head. I want to master the slabs. I want to give the IGA a run for it's money. When people from California find my blog and ask me to share the recipe (even to bake me a batch and mail it my way if I do), I know I'm not the only one mesmerized by this cookie.

So, here I am this morning read to roll the slabs out to bake. I'll probably be fixated on something else tomorrow night and fail to write how it goes. But I also imagine that if it goes well, everyone will know. And if I figure it out, I'm likely to keep it a secret. I learned that from Colonel Sanders in my KY days.

This just in!

Nope. The dough didn't set, and so the slabs had to be made brownie style. They were flavorful, but far from what a slab should be. In fact, they turned out nowhere near what a slab should be.

I'm guessing it is because I mixed and matched a hodge podge of ideas. I'm thinking I need to keep trying new things until I finally figure it out.

From my sister: Why don't you just call the Sherburne Big M and or order some to be delivered to your house?