For the first time during my holiday baking, I added gingerbread men to the baking list. I can’t emphasize how nervous I was to add gingerbread to my already long list of holiday baking items. We have all bitten in to a rock hard gingerbread cookie and been amazingly disappointed. It is a lot of pressure to bake the perfect cookie from a new recipe you have never tried before. Gingerbread can be especially difficult to perfect – like oil prices, the dough can be a little temperamental.
I did my recipe homework and emotionally prepared myself just in case my gingerbread cookies did not turn out. I found the perfect gingerbread man cookie cutter. I found a well-regarded recipe by Sweet Sugarbelle, which can be found here. When I realized I had all of the ingredients in my pantry already, I got started!
At the last minute, I realized I did not have enough molasses…as you might guess, the molasses provides the crucial flavor and dark coloring for the gingerbread cookies.
Baking, like the oil and gas industry, keeps one on her toes.
I halted where I was so far in the recipe and walked over to my neighborhood market to buy more molasses, only to realize, très disaster, they did not have it in stock. Just like the oil industry has done since the downturn, I had to improvise and figure it out in the heat of the moment. Although the stakes were clearly lower for me, as all I had in the game were cookies…
I thought on my feet – put a little of this and that in to substitute and went on with the plan. Grit is important. One must always follow through with the plan! Needless to say, it paid off and I baked the softest and best tasting gingerbread men I have ever had!
You may be wondering what this has in common with oil prices. Actually, it has a lot to do with it. As I write this blog, WTI Crude is sitting at $63.46 per barrel and Brent Crude is at $69.20 per barrel, according to Bloomberg Energy. This is “the highest closing levels in more than three years,” according to CNBC article entitled, Oil Prices Are Close to Levels Not Since the Thanksgiving 2014 Bloodbath.
Oil prices have led us on an emotional rollercoaster. Luckily, it seems that we are headed in a good direction.
A little resilience goes a long way – in baking and with oil prices.
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