no good deed goes unpunished, no act of charity goes unresented

There's this bit in the really wonderful Hyperbole and a Half book where the author, Ally Brosh, elaborates via her artwork, about how she's kind of a bad person. Because when she does good deeds, it's usually because then she'll in turn appear to be, and receive the acclaim of, a good person. As opposed to doing a good deed for the sheer bountiful joy of actually being a good person. I can't impress upon you enough just how aggressively this resonated with me. Well, the reason these cookie dough chocolate pretzel things came about is because someone - local artist Pinky Fang - did a very good deed just because she's an excellent person. And then someone else (*waggles glasses*) was like "I should make her some really cool cookies to say thanks and then I can blog about them and I need something to blog about so this is great and I'll look like such a nice person but also it really was nice what she did and this is my small way of sincerely saying hey, thanks."

The deed in question that merited rad Pinky these edible trinkets: she designed the logo from the kindness of her heart and the talent of her, uh, hands I guess, for the Wounded Gazelles team, who are doing the Round the Bays race later this month and raising money for the Casper organisation. I know a lot of dear-to-me people in this team, but also wouldn't run ever unless like, it was towards Lucy Liu in a kind of slow-motion-high-emotion scene at an airport to try to stop her leaving town. Otherwise, I do not run. Not for money, certainly not for love - a combination of remembering embarrassment and panic attacks in PE class and sports days at primary school, plus too many vexingly bouncy body parts, plus zero interest. What I can do though, is let you know that Casper is a really important organisation, and that the Wounded Gazelles have so many cool people on their team and if you want to pledge a little money, or buy a branded tshirt, tote, or singlet, why, it's not that difficult. They've raised a thousand dollars so far from so many kind people. 

Also, I am a literal hero, because I made these cookies and blogged about them. Um, but really, I adore Pinky's work (ocular proof: one of her insolent pink cat prints is on my wall) and it's so great that she donated her skills to make the super-endearing logo for the Wounded Gazelles. Check out her shop!

Admittedly I initially was going to make some kind of fall-back chocolate chip cookie type thing, but then I thought damn it, this deserves something special. I thought: I'm going to make some Internet Cookies. The type that appears on pinterest and is named something incoherently noun-heavy, as if someone just opened up their pantry and threw darts at things and then put all of those in a recipe together. Chocolate peanut butter brownie stuffed waffles with snickers cronut frosting. Cake batter donut cake donuts cake pops. Or something. 

These, though, these cookie dough chocolate pretzel things, are quite coherent. And coherently delicious, importantly. They're oddly not too sweet, being more about texture than merely exfoliating your lungs with three kinds of sugar. The crack of the chocolate coating, the crunch of the pretzels, the bulge of cookie dough, the roar of the crowd. 

They are also strangely easy - the dough comes together in minutes, they sandwich easily, and then all you have to do is chill them and then half-assedly dip them in chocolate. I know we don't quite have the same tradition of eating cookie dough here in New Zealand as America does - more's the pity - but like, it's the same ingredients that are in actual cookies, so no need to get nervous. And more objectively, there's no egg in the recipe. I guess putting pretzels in sweet things isn't quite as well-known here either but we should really get used to it because it's the best. Thanks, America!

pretzel cookie dough chocolate things 

Inspired by this recipe. However, maybe don't actually click through if you don't like words like "sinful" used to describe your completely non-sinful food that you're eating because you want to eat it. 

makes many.

125g butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cups or so flour
a couple of tablespoons of milk
150g dark chocolate (I'm very partial to milk chocolate, but dark is what I had.)
1 packet of pretzels

soften the butter, and beat together with the brown sugar. Tip in the flour and mix into something that looks like cookie dough - since that's what it is - and add a little milk as you see fit to make it something that can be easily rolled into balls. Not too soft, not too not-soft, just feel your way. 

Roll a very small ball of the dough with your hands, and sandwich it between two pretzels, squashing it down a little so the dough bulges out through the pretzel holes. Continue with the rest of the dough until it's finished (or you run out of pretzels) and chill them thoroughly in the fridge for at least half an hour. 

Melt the chocolate and dip the pretzel sandwiches so they're halfway covered, and then chill them again till you're ready to eat them. 



I...haven't actually given these away yet. But I've only eaten one. They're stupidly delicious and I couldn't exactly blog about them without trying them. But your stash is intact, Pinky, I promise.

It has been a quietish time lately, I've either been knitting or...knitting. Or watching very sad movies, while knitting. But on Saturday night I danced my cares away in town and it was very wonderful. (Incidentally, Pinky was one of the DJs that night, sorry if I'm weirding you out by saying your name too many times in this one post, Pinky.)

While I may never ever run anywhere, I can dance for hours in the dark. (Also yeah my lipstick here is mint green, I'm not in the grips of scurvy or something.)

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title from: um, I guess I'm not quite on-theme here but any chance to be like, "hey! look at my idol Idina Menzel! And can we talk about Wicked?" so here she is singing No Good Deed in her role of Elphaba, Wicked Witch of the West. 
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music lately:

Lana del Rey, Born to Die. Sometimes I'm just in a Lana-del-Rey-singing-sad-songs-mood.

The Breeders, Saints. Ughhhhhh so cool.

Selena, Bidi Bidi Bom Bom. Jennifer Lopez was exquisite in the biopic about this tragically killed, amazing singer (I told you I'd been watching sad movies) but this song is nothing but joy.  
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Next time: I discovered that you can buy candy love hearts in 2kg quantities online so upcoming will probably be recipes like "a bowl of candy love hearts" and also "candy lovehearts, served in clenched handfuls".