Big Bake 2010 Summary
well, the cookies have been baked, boxed, and shipped. we're done. completely done. we have to take the Chrisses their cookies, and give a bag to Joe the next door neighbor, but then we're done. done done.
yes, I'm a little bemused.
I took Friday off work, and that was wonderful, a lot because I soooo wanted to be away from work. the semester has been long and annoying. I am so ready for J's position to be filled. K talked to our #1 candidate on Friday and offered him the job. we'll hear an answer soon, I hope. but that's not about baking, so I shall move along.
By The Numbers
Standard Peanut Butter (three batches): 8 dozen + 5
Peanut Butter with PB Chips (two batches): 5 dozen + 10
Chocolate Chip (3 batches, two bags of chips): 13.5 dozen
Snickerdoodle (3.5 batches, I think): 12 dozen
Molasses (3 batches): 9 dozen + 7
Chocolate Crinkles (2.5 batches): 8 dozen + 8
Cranberry Apricot Chocolate Chews (.5 batch): 1 dozen large
Shortbread (1 batch): not sure how to record the yield yet. I only baked half a batch, and it made a few cookie-like things.
Oatmeal Cranberry (4 batches): didn't get counted, dammit, but we had about 6 left over and I ate one. I estimate the yield was 10 dozen, give or take a cookie or two.
things went very smoothly this year, albeit not at all perfectly. we made several more trips to the grocery store than I had hoped to make. this included three (planned) stops at Hy-Vee on Friday, an unplanned stop at Fareway for cranberries, and an additional unplanned stop at Hy-Vee on Saturday.
Goal 1 for 2011: have ALL supplies (including spices) in the house before beginning. that's my goal every year, and every year there's something missing. Hy-Vee finally had butter on sale for under $2/lb ($1.69) but had a limit of two. and the butter was on sale only on Friday. so David and I went in the morning, and he bought two pounds and I bought two pounds. then after dropping David off at work, I stopped at Hy-Vee again and got two more pounds. the third trip yielded none, because it was in the evening and they were completely out. darn.
the third trip to Hy-Vee that came up dry for butter wasn't completely unproductive, though. I actually went for cream of tarter, not butter. luckily, while I was standing in the spice aisle fuming over the complete lack of cream of tarter, some employees came along looking for cream of tarter. they found one last package of six little cans, so I got one. yay!
then since spices were on sale, I bought several. I had just gone through my spice rack that afternoon, so I had a pretty good idea what I needed. I bought some oregano, and some marjoram, and a couple other things, including ginger because I had ginger on my list, see? yeah. well, I forgot that I have ginger. not only that, but I have tons of ginger. I didn't need ginger. what I needed was cloves! I thought I had a full and partial thing of ground cloves, but not so. I had a partial and a completely empty container of cloves.
that would be why we needed the other unplanned trip to Hy-Vee on Saturday. David also got me some more baking chocolate, and a few other things.
okay, back to the actual notes:
I measured spices this year, in order to figure out how many grams a teaspoon of cinnamon is, for example. this should help me get a good idea ahead of time whether I have enough spices beforehand, since I can weigh them instead of eying them. I need to put the spices into my ingredient spreadsheet.
speaking of my ingredient spreadsheet, it needs to be updated and expanded. it needs to include spices and other "special" ingredients. when I originally developed it, I was mostly interested in making sure I had enough butter, sugar, eggs, oats, and flour in the house. now I know I need to be more diligent about checking on chocolate chips, spices, dried fruits, and other things. that is on my list of things to do for next year.
on the upside, putting my recipes into spreadsheet form was brilliant, if I do say so myself. I put all the recipes into my spreadsheet and had my laptop in the kitchen, so I could just put in how many batches I was going to mix, and the ingredient amounts would automatically update. I didn't have to do the mental math or worry about forgetting if I was doubling or tripling midway through. it was awesome, and even better, it's done for the majority of the recipes I do regularly. all I have to do is add anything else I do later on.
no baking mishaps this year. per the recipe spreadsheets, I didn't forget to double one ingredient and have to go back in and make adjustments like I did several times last year. apart from a lack of ingredients, all went quite smoothly.
I didn't get started mixing dough nearly early enough on Friday, though. Randy had a vet appointment at 8:00, and then we took him over to doggie daycare for the day. this got him out from underfoot, but meant I had to take a break in the evening to go pick him up. this meant also that I had to take David to work so I would have the car, rather than letting him get around himself. after dropping Randy off at daycare, we did our unplanned trip to Fareway, the one in Marion, which takes a while to get to from Hiawatha. went home, and had to wash dishes and do other prep. took David to work, went to the store again, and then got home and assembled the pot pie for dinner, which took a while. so it was 4:00 PM before I did anything related to mixing cookie dough.
I got the peanut butter cookies mixed, then had to take a break to work out, go pick up Randy from daycare, pick up David from work, and go to Hy-Vee for cream of tarter (but not cloves, dammit!). once we got home, we had dinner, and then I realized that I needed to reclaim the big mixing bowl from the peaches and mango I had thawing/draining in it, so I made the pie. which took a while. then I continued with the cookies.
at some point in here I also mixed and baked a half a batch of the chocolate crinkles, so I could see how they tasted with a couple add-ins. they were tasty, so I proceeded with the rest of the mixing later.
Goal 2 for 2011: start earlier! try to figure out a way to cut down on errands and extras. that being said, part of the last-minute rush was caused by unexpected choir practice on Thursday, due to plans to participate in John's funeral, so some was unavoidable.
Saturday, I worked out first so I wouldn't have to worry about fitting it in later when I was busy and tired. then I had to get organized and put together the list of things I needed from the store. however, David went to Hy-Vee for me, so I didn't have to do it. that left me free to do other prep and things that needed doing. had to clean off the table so it could be used to cool cookies, take out the recycle stuff, wash dishes, play with the dog, etc. etc. etc. when he got back, I was finally able to finish mixing all the doughs I needed, about 4:00, which meant it took me 24 hours to do all that stuff. I told David, if I hadn't done the sleep thing, I would have been all set, but we both agree that sleeping was good.
took another break for dinner, then started with the baking part. we baked until about 11:00, I think. David was completely invaluable all weekend, though he doesn't feel like he was very involved. he wanted to help more, but I wasn't organized enough to delegate much. however, he scooped five of the six types of dough. he sat and watched Chuck Season 3 (which he got for his birthday) and scooped and scooped and scooped. it was so incredibly helpful, because once I started baking, all I had to do was plop the little wads of dough on the cookie sheets and stick them in the oven. after we got done baking the chocolate chip, oatmeal, and peanut butter, we quit for the night.
Goal 3 for 2011: make a list of the names of people receiving cookies that also includes the number of cookies to go into each bag. that way I can delegate bagging duties, as needed. I couldn't delegate as much stuff to David (who really wanted to help) because the information was in my head, not written down in a comprehensible manner.
Sunday, started baking again about noon. got done about 4:00 PM. I made an unexpected addition of a batch of shortbread for Mom, because she was very disappointed to hear that I hadn't planned to make shortbread. the shortbread didn't turn out so well. I know why, though.
I bagged up cookies as they were baked, so that was done when the cookies were done, which was a lot more efficient than putting cookies into large bags and then having to rebag them. per my goal above, I hope to let David do that next year.
then it was just a matter of boxing them, addressing them, and taking them to the postal substation. NEXT YEAR I will do large address labels prior to baking, so I can just stick the labels on the boxes. that'll be just one more thing that would increase efficiency. I had hoped to take a Monday off work instead of a Friday, but it didn't work out that way this year. still, for next year, I think it would be better that way because of taking the boxes to the actual post office instead of a postal service counter at Hy-Vee. I don't know how much extra time that will add to the shipping, but hopefully not a lot.
then we were done! they went into the mail and they are completely done. I'm still a little bemused by the fact that we're all done. I need to update my yields according to what I actually counted. we ended up with a large number of extra chocolate chip, which was unplanned. we also have a large number of extra peanut butter, which was kind of planned (not that many extra!) and we have a fair number of extra snickerdoodles, which was also kind of planned. but not too many extra of anything else. the goal is to make as many as we need, and not too much extra that will be sitting around the house for us to eat. we don't need to be eating that many cookies.
The Cookies In Review
Oatmeal Cranberry: not so awesome this year. I have really variable results with these cookies, and I don't know why. last year, they were large, soft, delicious cookies. this year, they're large, hard lumps. I may give up on oatmeal cookies and just do a different variety.
Peanut Butter: one reason we had a few more extra this year than I had planned is because I unexpectedly decided to put peanut butter chips into some of them. I kept track of the yields of both kinds separately. both David and I agree that peanut butter chips were a very nice addition, so I might do that again.
Chocolate Chip: I don't have much to say about these right now, because it occurs to me that I haven't eaten any yet. I didn't even eat any as a taste test to make sure they were okay. however, I thought the size this year was nice and they looked pretty. I'll eat one or two when I get home tonight and see how they are. Note: I only used two bags of chips split between three batches (because I can't count to three).
Snickerdoodle: what can I say? snickerdoodles are the perfect cookie, and these turned out well according to my taste test. not too hard, and so delicious.
Molasses: also tasty, though the true test is to eat one now, a day later. they turned out very light again this year. they basically look like gingersnaps. I think it has to do with how I mixed the ingredients together and how long I beat them (amount of air beat into the dough). of course, as noted to both David and later to Mark, the difference between gingersnaps and molasses cookies is slight. both gingersnaps and molasses have the same ingredients; the only real differences are the ratios of shortening to molasses and ginger to cloves. they turned out well, but next year I think I'll make gingersnaps.
Chocolate Crinkles: though I have long maintained that snickerdoodles are the perfect cookie, chocolate crinkles are in a very close tie for second favorite. this time around, I added a little bit of cinnamon and a smidge of cayenne to make them similar to the "Mexican" chocolate crinkles that the Java House makes. I like experimenting on my family. I thought overall the additions were great, but a little more of each would be awesome.
Cranberry Apricot Chocolate Chews: tied for second favorite with the chocolate crinkles, these cookies aren't for general consumption because they're a pain to make. they're not hard to make, but cutting up the requisite amount of apricots into small pieces takes a long time and I just don't have the patience. however, this time of year is basically the only time I make cookies, so I do a few for myself because they are awesome. I also send some to Mom. this year, I only made a half a batch and used the big scoop. yield was only a dozen, but they were large and chewy and wonderful.
Shortbread: a last-minute addition, and I experimented with using part white whole wheat flour. didn't turn out so awesome, in part because I was in kind of a hurry and didn't have the patience to work with it as much as I should have. I added two extra T of butter, and I probably could have gotten by with only adding 1. as a result, though very delicious and flaky in texture, they were rather more greasy than I like cookies to be. also, I didn't score them deeply enough, so they didn't break cleanly. nevertheless, I packaged some up for Mom.
yes, I'm a little bemused.
I took Friday off work, and that was wonderful, a lot because I soooo wanted to be away from work. the semester has been long and annoying. I am so ready for J's position to be filled. K talked to our #1 candidate on Friday and offered him the job. we'll hear an answer soon, I hope. but that's not about baking, so I shall move along.
By The Numbers
Standard Peanut Butter (three batches): 8 dozen + 5
Peanut Butter with PB Chips (two batches): 5 dozen + 10
Chocolate Chip (3 batches, two bags of chips): 13.5 dozen
Snickerdoodle (3.5 batches, I think): 12 dozen
Molasses (3 batches): 9 dozen + 7
Chocolate Crinkles (2.5 batches): 8 dozen + 8
Cranberry Apricot Chocolate Chews (.5 batch): 1 dozen large
Shortbread (1 batch): not sure how to record the yield yet. I only baked half a batch, and it made a few cookie-like things.
Oatmeal Cranberry (4 batches): didn't get counted, dammit, but we had about 6 left over and I ate one. I estimate the yield was 10 dozen, give or take a cookie or two.
things went very smoothly this year, albeit not at all perfectly. we made several more trips to the grocery store than I had hoped to make. this included three (planned) stops at Hy-Vee on Friday, an unplanned stop at Fareway for cranberries, and an additional unplanned stop at Hy-Vee on Saturday.
Goal 1 for 2011: have ALL supplies (including spices) in the house before beginning. that's my goal every year, and every year there's something missing. Hy-Vee finally had butter on sale for under $2/lb ($1.69) but had a limit of two. and the butter was on sale only on Friday. so David and I went in the morning, and he bought two pounds and I bought two pounds. then after dropping David off at work, I stopped at Hy-Vee again and got two more pounds. the third trip yielded none, because it was in the evening and they were completely out. darn.
the third trip to Hy-Vee that came up dry for butter wasn't completely unproductive, though. I actually went for cream of tarter, not butter. luckily, while I was standing in the spice aisle fuming over the complete lack of cream of tarter, some employees came along looking for cream of tarter. they found one last package of six little cans, so I got one. yay!
then since spices were on sale, I bought several. I had just gone through my spice rack that afternoon, so I had a pretty good idea what I needed. I bought some oregano, and some marjoram, and a couple other things, including ginger because I had ginger on my list, see? yeah. well, I forgot that I have ginger. not only that, but I have tons of ginger. I didn't need ginger. what I needed was cloves! I thought I had a full and partial thing of ground cloves, but not so. I had a partial and a completely empty container of cloves.
that would be why we needed the other unplanned trip to Hy-Vee on Saturday. David also got me some more baking chocolate, and a few other things.
okay, back to the actual notes:
I measured spices this year, in order to figure out how many grams a teaspoon of cinnamon is, for example. this should help me get a good idea ahead of time whether I have enough spices beforehand, since I can weigh them instead of eying them. I need to put the spices into my ingredient spreadsheet.
speaking of my ingredient spreadsheet, it needs to be updated and expanded. it needs to include spices and other "special" ingredients. when I originally developed it, I was mostly interested in making sure I had enough butter, sugar, eggs, oats, and flour in the house. now I know I need to be more diligent about checking on chocolate chips, spices, dried fruits, and other things. that is on my list of things to do for next year.
on the upside, putting my recipes into spreadsheet form was brilliant, if I do say so myself. I put all the recipes into my spreadsheet and had my laptop in the kitchen, so I could just put in how many batches I was going to mix, and the ingredient amounts would automatically update. I didn't have to do the mental math or worry about forgetting if I was doubling or tripling midway through. it was awesome, and even better, it's done for the majority of the recipes I do regularly. all I have to do is add anything else I do later on.
no baking mishaps this year. per the recipe spreadsheets, I didn't forget to double one ingredient and have to go back in and make adjustments like I did several times last year. apart from a lack of ingredients, all went quite smoothly.
I didn't get started mixing dough nearly early enough on Friday, though. Randy had a vet appointment at 8:00, and then we took him over to doggie daycare for the day. this got him out from underfoot, but meant I had to take a break in the evening to go pick him up. this meant also that I had to take David to work so I would have the car, rather than letting him get around himself. after dropping Randy off at daycare, we did our unplanned trip to Fareway, the one in Marion, which takes a while to get to from Hiawatha. went home, and had to wash dishes and do other prep. took David to work, went to the store again, and then got home and assembled the pot pie for dinner, which took a while. so it was 4:00 PM before I did anything related to mixing cookie dough.
I got the peanut butter cookies mixed, then had to take a break to work out, go pick up Randy from daycare, pick up David from work, and go to Hy-Vee for cream of tarter (but not cloves, dammit!). once we got home, we had dinner, and then I realized that I needed to reclaim the big mixing bowl from the peaches and mango I had thawing/draining in it, so I made the pie. which took a while. then I continued with the cookies.
at some point in here I also mixed and baked a half a batch of the chocolate crinkles, so I could see how they tasted with a couple add-ins. they were tasty, so I proceeded with the rest of the mixing later.
Goal 2 for 2011: start earlier! try to figure out a way to cut down on errands and extras. that being said, part of the last-minute rush was caused by unexpected choir practice on Thursday, due to plans to participate in John's funeral, so some was unavoidable.
Saturday, I worked out first so I wouldn't have to worry about fitting it in later when I was busy and tired. then I had to get organized and put together the list of things I needed from the store. however, David went to Hy-Vee for me, so I didn't have to do it. that left me free to do other prep and things that needed doing. had to clean off the table so it could be used to cool cookies, take out the recycle stuff, wash dishes, play with the dog, etc. etc. etc. when he got back, I was finally able to finish mixing all the doughs I needed, about 4:00, which meant it took me 24 hours to do all that stuff. I told David, if I hadn't done the sleep thing, I would have been all set, but we both agree that sleeping was good.
took another break for dinner, then started with the baking part. we baked until about 11:00, I think. David was completely invaluable all weekend, though he doesn't feel like he was very involved. he wanted to help more, but I wasn't organized enough to delegate much. however, he scooped five of the six types of dough. he sat and watched Chuck Season 3 (which he got for his birthday) and scooped and scooped and scooped. it was so incredibly helpful, because once I started baking, all I had to do was plop the little wads of dough on the cookie sheets and stick them in the oven. after we got done baking the chocolate chip, oatmeal, and peanut butter, we quit for the night.
Goal 3 for 2011: make a list of the names of people receiving cookies that also includes the number of cookies to go into each bag. that way I can delegate bagging duties, as needed. I couldn't delegate as much stuff to David (who really wanted to help) because the information was in my head, not written down in a comprehensible manner.
Sunday, started baking again about noon. got done about 4:00 PM. I made an unexpected addition of a batch of shortbread for Mom, because she was very disappointed to hear that I hadn't planned to make shortbread. the shortbread didn't turn out so well. I know why, though.
I bagged up cookies as they were baked, so that was done when the cookies were done, which was a lot more efficient than putting cookies into large bags and then having to rebag them. per my goal above, I hope to let David do that next year.
then it was just a matter of boxing them, addressing them, and taking them to the postal substation. NEXT YEAR I will do large address labels prior to baking, so I can just stick the labels on the boxes. that'll be just one more thing that would increase efficiency. I had hoped to take a Monday off work instead of a Friday, but it didn't work out that way this year. still, for next year, I think it would be better that way because of taking the boxes to the actual post office instead of a postal service counter at Hy-Vee. I don't know how much extra time that will add to the shipping, but hopefully not a lot.
then we were done! they went into the mail and they are completely done. I'm still a little bemused by the fact that we're all done. I need to update my yields according to what I actually counted. we ended up with a large number of extra chocolate chip, which was unplanned. we also have a large number of extra peanut butter, which was kind of planned (not that many extra!) and we have a fair number of extra snickerdoodles, which was also kind of planned. but not too many extra of anything else. the goal is to make as many as we need, and not too much extra that will be sitting around the house for us to eat. we don't need to be eating that many cookies.
The Cookies In Review
Oatmeal Cranberry: not so awesome this year. I have really variable results with these cookies, and I don't know why. last year, they were large, soft, delicious cookies. this year, they're large, hard lumps. I may give up on oatmeal cookies and just do a different variety.
Peanut Butter: one reason we had a few more extra this year than I had planned is because I unexpectedly decided to put peanut butter chips into some of them. I kept track of the yields of both kinds separately. both David and I agree that peanut butter chips were a very nice addition, so I might do that again.
Chocolate Chip: I don't have much to say about these right now, because it occurs to me that I haven't eaten any yet. I didn't even eat any as a taste test to make sure they were okay. however, I thought the size this year was nice and they looked pretty. I'll eat one or two when I get home tonight and see how they are. Note: I only used two bags of chips split between three batches (because I can't count to three).
Snickerdoodle: what can I say? snickerdoodles are the perfect cookie, and these turned out well according to my taste test. not too hard, and so delicious.
Molasses: also tasty, though the true test is to eat one now, a day later. they turned out very light again this year. they basically look like gingersnaps. I think it has to do with how I mixed the ingredients together and how long I beat them (amount of air beat into the dough). of course, as noted to both David and later to Mark, the difference between gingersnaps and molasses cookies is slight. both gingersnaps and molasses have the same ingredients; the only real differences are the ratios of shortening to molasses and ginger to cloves. they turned out well, but next year I think I'll make gingersnaps.
Chocolate Crinkles: though I have long maintained that snickerdoodles are the perfect cookie, chocolate crinkles are in a very close tie for second favorite. this time around, I added a little bit of cinnamon and a smidge of cayenne to make them similar to the "Mexican" chocolate crinkles that the Java House makes. I like experimenting on my family. I thought overall the additions were great, but a little more of each would be awesome.
Cranberry Apricot Chocolate Chews: tied for second favorite with the chocolate crinkles, these cookies aren't for general consumption because they're a pain to make. they're not hard to make, but cutting up the requisite amount of apricots into small pieces takes a long time and I just don't have the patience. however, this time of year is basically the only time I make cookies, so I do a few for myself because they are awesome. I also send some to Mom. this year, I only made a half a batch and used the big scoop. yield was only a dozen, but they were large and chewy and wonderful.
Shortbread: a last-minute addition, and I experimented with using part white whole wheat flour. didn't turn out so awesome, in part because I was in kind of a hurry and didn't have the patience to work with it as much as I should have. I added two extra T of butter, and I probably could have gotten by with only adding 1. as a result, though very delicious and flaky in texture, they were rather more greasy than I like cookies to be. also, I didn't score them deeply enough, so they didn't break cleanly. nevertheless, I packaged some up for Mom.