Sweet Little Lies

You know those days when you feel absolutely completely totally 100% confident that you can make cookies without eating half the recipe yourself? Well I do. And I’m an idiot. And I tend to forget I’m an idiot. A lot. There has been the rare occasion where I have made it through without gorging myself on cake batter or cookie dough, but I’d say it’s about 10% of the time. 5%? One half of 1%? I’m pretty sure it’s happened at least once.

But I’m a baker! I’ve always loved to bake, and there’s something really intense about giving up things you used to love to do in the name of a new healthy lifestyle. There’s a place deep down in my gut that says I shouldn’t have to sacrifice who I am as a person. I am a baker, and I shouldn’t have to give that up, dammit. So I delude myself into thinking I have gobs of willpower that will somehow allow me to bake alone and not turn into Agustus Gloop. Do you know how this story ends? Hint: it’s yummy.

Okay, rewind. Let’s start the story again to focus on the few times I’ve actually conquered the shoulder devil that calls to me to have another cookie because I’ve already had 20 so what does it matter. I can think of two instances. The first one is a fluke, I was super motivated to resist because I had to wear a bridesmaid dress just a few days after the cake making. That was enough to keep me focused on the giant bowl of vegetables I had made up for myself to snack on throughout the process. And voila, a lovely cake with beautiful, uneaten layers.

And now the story of how I tricked myself into baking for others and not myself: coffee. See, coffee is my food nemesis. If you’re that person at the airport who sat down next to me with your lovely piping-hot Starbucks mochalattachinowhatever, I got up and moved because of your coffee, you yourself don’t smell bad. Hating coffee makes me somewhat of a social outcast, it’s kinda like if every time someone wanted to meet up with you out in the world they suggested getting together for a cigarette. Gross, right?

So my delectable little cookies had a secret ingredient: espresso powder. I made my favorite almond cookie recipe, added some powdered disgusting, and enlisted the help of my hubby to make sure that the cookies tasted yummy to a coffee drinker. Perfect! I headed off to my friend Kaitlin’s bachelorette weekend with a bag full of lovely treats that didn’t temp me for three days.

  

Confession! I also made some almond flour walnut cookies with very little sugar so that I could enjoy some sweet treats too. But these cookies are much less addictive and I was able to easily limit myself to one per day. Here’s the healthy cookie recipe I followed from Tina at Carrot’s ‘N’ Cake. Yummy and they have walnuts for omega-3s!

Second confession! There may have been some alcohol consumed on the bachelorette weekend. My food tracker for those days is not perfect but I made damned sure it was honest. One day under lunch I wrote down just vodka and cranberry juice. Good times. My small-victory finder says that we did a lot of dancing and I managed to keep the calories under control. In crazy situations, I have to take all the wins I can get!