By Kevin Pham

Staff Writer

This past New Year was an adventurous day for me as I decided to bake a pie, snickerdoodle cookies, and macarons.

  Ever since I first became interested in culinary arts, my mantra has been, “work smarter, not harder.” By now it has become clear that I am not a food expert and I am not going to culinary school anytime soon. But, I do know my way around the kitchen.

   Being the smart worker that I am, I prepped all the ingredients and materials the night before so everything was ready. More importantly, the pie and cookie dough had time to chill in the refrigerator overnight.  

  On the morning of New Year’s Eve, I was ready. In a record time of three hours, I finished the cookies and macarons.

  I was ready to tackle the challenge of making the apple pie. It should have been pretty straight-forward since I have baked it a few times before. The problem was, the last time I had made apple pie was two years ago and I remember the apples being crunchy rather than soft.

  First, I made the pie filling. I peeled and sliced four large Granny Smith apples. In a large mixing bowl, I added in a quarter cup of sugar, two and a half tablespoons of cinnamon, two tablespoons of flour, a teaspoon of cumin, and a teaspoon of nutmeg.

  As I stirred the ingredients together, I realized that I never turned on the oven. That was my first mistake.

  Luckily, I caught the mistake early so I had time to remedy everything before I put the pie in.

  Then, I realized that I accidentally left the pie dough in the freezer. I placed it in there so the butter could harden but I forgot to take it out.

  Frozen solid. Great. After some rough pounding, I got the dough to roll out.

  After assembling my pie and placing it into the oven, I had to play the waiting game. As the aromas of the cinnamon and sugar filled my living room, I was really excited to try my pie.

  Pulling it out of the oven was extremely satisfying. When I went to cut a slice, however, I realized I made another terrible mistake.

  The oven was set to 250 degrees Fahrenheit instead of 350. The pie crust on the bottom of the pie was still frozen solid.

  I decided to never make a pie ever again.