Anyone from the Chicagoland area remember the Ray Raynor Show? It was a delightful show for children way back when, And it had valuable lessons.
My favorite memories are of his cooking a Thanksgiving turkey and when he showed craft projects for the kids. What made it so special? And hilarious? He always managed to mess up in some way. He would start off with a golden brown turkey or a pretty Mother’s Day craft. And whether it was trying to stuff the turkey upside down or adding too much glue to the craft project and ending up with a gooey mess, he entertained and gave good messages.
One might think at first glance “what is the lesson in that?”
He allowed children to be children. To let them know that it’s okay if something doesn’t come out just “perfect”. He got down to their level. It seemed to me to be a show for adults as well as the children.
What does that have to do with Red, White, and Blue Shortbread Cookies? Well, I thought of the Ray Raynor show several times while making the cookies. I just kept running into snags. They were delicious but the recipe didn’t exactly cooperate. Partly my fault.
It called for an 8×8 square glass pan. I didn’t have one so I increased the recipe by half again and put it in an 8×11 glass pan. The only real problem with that actually is the rounded corners. The cookies weren’t exactly squared off.
I was short 1/4C sugar so I added some Equal. That was no big deal.
They baked well. It took a little longer, of course, because of the change in pans and quantity of the dough, but that was okay too.
Then it came to the dipping the cookies in the chocolate and adding the sprinkles. It’s possible I bought the wrong chocolate, although none of the chocolate was listed as dipping chocolate. At any rate, I had a mess, I had chocolate dripping everywhere and so when I needed to add the sprinkles before the chocolate hardened, I ended up with sprinkles everywhere as well.
I had to chuckle and thought of Ray Raynor. Thank you Ray.
I have added a link to the original cookie recipe that I found on Pinterest. I do hope you will give them a try and learn from my mistakes. And if they don’t end up “perfect” give a smile and a nod to the Ray Raynor Show.
Have a great week!
Doris
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