ice is nice.

Hottawa. The glorious inferno that is now my beautiful city has me sweating at the seams.

We are experiencing a crazy heat wave in Ontario. Coupled with the fires that have been going on, I am definitely feeling heat (please pardon the silly puns, I can't help it) and I am forced to find creative ways to keep cool. As I type this out on the third floor of my apartment building (heat rises..), I have two super turbo fans aimed at me with the lights off and bottled ice water at my feet.

No, I am not trying to conserve electricity by going without light. Having the lights on adds to the heat, so I'd much rather type in the dark than suffer another ounce of increased Celsius. 

My bottled ice water has melted, but you must trust that it is not the only thing that has melted over the past couple of days. 

Wednesdays at work are 'Snack Attack' days. One person brings in a snack for everyone to share, and it usually adds to the merriment and happy tummys that we enjoy at work.

It just so happened that my snack attack turn fell on the region's highest Humidex week since 1953 (fact). I had already promised to bring in my Chocolate Chip Oreo cookies so when I was buying ingredients after work on Tuesday, I silently cursed the amazing cookies in my head because I didn't want to get within three feet of my oven, much less turn it on.

But a promise is a promise, and I could not let my fellow phone comrades down!

I started baking at nine last night, I figured if the sun left the heat would too. Never assume anything in the summer. I had taken out the butter so it would soften and make it easier to mix. 

I did not expect it to grease down like water, but then again it needed to melted and mixed, so that evaporation was welcomed. The others were not. 

Then the chocolate chips began dissolving in the batter when I mixed them in and I was very upset because it was turning my beautiful vanilla batter into an odd shade of chocolate-brown instead of just dotting it delicately. My chocolate chip cookie batter became chocolate poo. But no matter, I would carry on and make chocolate poo delicious (I mean that in the best way).

The last step was to "wrap" the Oreos in the chocolate (chip) batter. A relatively easy step which I've done many times before, no sweat, if your Oreos don't melt.

Have you ever heard of melted Oreos? I haven't, till last night when one nearly dissolved in my hands. I had to chuck them in the fridge for fifteen minutes before I'd wrap a batch because they were falling apart. The little cookie sandwich had its white creamy centre dripping out of the core, I am not exaggerating. My first batch of cookies were speckled with little white flecks (sort of like snowflakes..oh snow..) but the other two batches turned out much better. 

Complaints and grumbles aside, the cookies turned out well and I had 17 happy friends at work today, till the phones started ringing and the people started walking in (kidding).

I have baked in the heat before, but not 46C. I know I shouldn't be complaining about the weather, I'm from South East Asia (represent!), we revel in the fact that sweating after climbing stairs is a normalcy in our country, but I have become accustomed to the beauty of bitter cold evenings, I like the cold.

It's easier to bake cookies in the cold.

PS: No photos for this post. My camera refused to take pictures of chocolate poo.

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