So now you're on the hook for 10 dozen cookies - 120, plus extras for snacking and kid distraction and breakage and more snacking. Call it 140 cookies. Okay, 150.
How does one manage to make 150 cookies without losing one's sanity? I got two words for you, baby: Cookie Press.
I'm not exactly a whiz with this thing - in the past I have ended up doing more cursing than pressing, and I wasn't super-happy with how they tasted. But faced with the choice between scooping out 150 balls of something, or trying to convince the dough to work in the press, I took my chances with the press.
Two batches of cookies (one vanilla, one orange spice) later, I can authoritatively say that the cookie press kicks some serious mass-production ass ... if you've got the right recipe, at the right temperature, with the right plate in the press, and you stand on one foot while chanting "I must not freak in front of my daughter" under your breath. If the moon is in the right phase and your humidity is below 54%, you can get four dozen cookies on trays, ready to bake, in 10 minutes flat. Even when you have just returned from a four-hour return trip from IKEA, thanks to the snowstorm that sprung up while you were ordering kitchen cabinets and trying to keep your kid from peeing in the ball pit.
Ahem. Anyway, now I have more than enough cookies for the party, the misshapen ones have been stuck in the kid-accessible location, and the cursing wasn't nearly as bad as in the past. Now, if I could just get over the fact that the spice ones look like pupae of some sort ...
Good thing I didn't overbake any of them ... they totally would look like cat clunkers. Hee. I haven't used the phrase "cat clunkers" since I moved out of my parents house, where the dog was known to occasionally forage for snacks in the cat box. Now there's a mental image you wanted for the holidays, right?
4 comments:
I'm more impressed that you have cooking pans for 150 cookies, wire racks for 150 cookies, oven space for 150 cookies, and the space in the kitchen for processing 150 cookies.
My biggest gripe on baking cookies is the cooking time. I can make 2 dozen cookies per pan and can get two pans in the oven at a time. That comes out to a lot of time taking things in and out of the oven.
That's why I make baklava. It is easier. Especially when you use the spray "butter" in a can on each layer of the filo dough.
- MLF
I used two cookie sheets, two pizza pans, and I think the pan from our toaster oven, which held all the cookies from one batch of cookie dough (roughly six dozen). I pressed them all, then decorated them all, then baked one sheet at a time so they would all turn out exactly the same. At 10 minutes per sheet, it still took less than an hour. I only needed one rack to cool the cookies - by the time one sheet was cooked, the previous batch had cooled and could be stacked up. Plus, the cookies are small.
I froze the first batch of cookies in plastic containers, and I made the second batch a few days later. Unfroze the first batch, packaged them all up, and it was done.
Wow! That is impressive logistics of pre-planning.
you are a cookie pro! i am jealous.
my dog is a big fan of the litter box, and i really dont get it! of course, she is way into the cat food to begin with so i just figure she is determined to get at it one way or another! tmi. i know. i know.
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