I’m honored (and a little nervous) to be guest posting here at Once a Month Mom, because anyone who knows me knows I’m not much of a cook (and if you don’t know me, you’re about to find out for yourself). But for many of us, that’s the beauty of baking in bulk: we don’t have to do it that often! The following is an overview of my big Christmas Cookie Baking Day. The cookies are all now safely stored in the freezer, leaving me free to give you all the play-by-play.
I had a ‘menu’ of six different Christmas cookies and planned to triple each recipe for a grand total of approximately 36 dozen cookies. In reality, it didn’t work out quite that way. You’ll see why.
Like a good OAMC cook, I had done my shopping the day before. My list included 22 cups of flour, 12 cups of sugar, 9 cups of brown sugar, 15 cups of butter, 10 eggs, 6 cups of powdered sugar, 3 cups of pecans, 3 cups of walnuts, and 4 cups of chocolate chips, among other things. Above is my kitchen counter top at 7 am on Baking Day.
I started with my son’s favorite Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies. He helped with the unwrapping (and occasional eating) of Hershey’s kisses. This recipe went very smoothly (because it’s so easy). I made six dozen, and when the last batch went into the oven, I started on Recipe #2: Gingerbread Men. This recipe makes 3 dozen, so I made three batches and left them in the fridge to chill while I made # 3: Sugar Cookies. They were soon stacked next to the gingerbread dough.
Then I decided to get a bit more daring with Cocoa Wedding Cake Cookies (I’ve always called them Snowball Cookies). Tripling this recipe proved too much for my little Cuisinart. My solution (after a very bad grinding sound persisted from the machine) was to mix only the butter and pecans in the Cuisinart, then transfer to a large mixing bowl, where I used a hand mixer.
These cookies were delicious! (Not that I sampled many.) I made 6 dozen, but took a ten minute break to take my kids over to my neighbor’s house to play and accidentally left the dog inside. I bet you can see where this is going…I came home to only 3 dozen Snowballs cooling on the counter. And the dog wasn’t even sick!
After the dog disaster, I started on the Cinnamon Pinwheels. This recipe was easier to follow than I’d anticipated (remember, I’m not very confident in the kitchen!). It’s basically sugar cookie dough layered with cinnamon-flavored dough, then rolled like you would cinnamon rolls, sliced, and baked. Tip: if your Cuisinart drops the ball like mine did, you can grind the Red Hot candies in a coffee grinder instead. It worked perfectly!
My last cookie of the day (started at 2 pm): Chocolate Chip Blondies. In hindsight, I wouldn’t have included a bar cookie recipe, or at very least, I would have tackled it earlier in the day. The batter was easy to make, but the bars (in three 9×12 pans) took a long time to bake and even longer to cool and cut. It was a bit more time intensive than I would have liked (although the result was certainly yummy).
At about 3 pm (with one hour left before retrieving my kids from the long-suffering neighbor), I pulled the gingerbread and sugar cookie dough back out of the fridge and started rolling each ball out one by one. If I had more counter space, I’d have rolled several out at once, but this is what my kitchen looked like at this point:
Next time, I’m cleaning as I go!
I was only midway through cutting out gingerbread men and sugar cookies at 4 pm, and finally finished baking them all at 6 pm. Nearly 12 hours of almost continuous baking! As each batch cooled, I zip-locked bagged them and put them in the freezer to await frosting, decorating, and gifting (that will be another day!).
How do you tackle your Christmas cookie baking? Do you spread it out throughout the season, or do as I did? If so, how did it go?
For you experts out there, any tips for me for next time?
About Amy
Amy Whitley is learning as she goes when it comes to the domestic arts. You can find her talking about things she does know a little about at her blog The Never-True Tales and her travel review site Pitstops for Kids.
30 Comments
Join the discussionwhat ive done this year is i have made 1 batch of cookies per day. i cook about 1 dozen for us to eat, put the rest of the cookie balls on a cookie sheet and freeze. once frozen i put the balls into a container. so now when i need cookies i just pop out a couple balls and bake. so far its working well!
Hi Heather! That’s a great idea. I didn’t even think to freeze before baking. It’s probably the way to go to make them the most fresh!
I also freeze the “cookie balls”. It means we always have fresh cookies. I love it! Yum yum!
My husband and I attempted to bake several types of cookies at one time and it was much more difficult than we expected. We did it as a “date night” so it was pretty fun at the same time. But, we never thought about freezing them! That’s a great idea! I do think that if you can make them all in one day while you have your oven on and all your ingredients, it does save time in the long run. Guess that’s the point of OAMC, right? 🙂
Yep, totally the point of OAMC! It was an exhausting day, but totally worth it! Sounds fun to make it a date night!
Amy,I think this is great! You did it ALL in one day. That is a lot of cookies. I am planning my baking but not sure about freezing them. I think I will give it a try. Does the taste change?Anna
This isn’t Amy, but we always freeze our Christmas cookies and they turn out just fine. No taste difference!
Yes, I may have sampled some in the last few days, and the taste is perfect!
wow, I have to say , I think you did great!!!
You have me bet by a long way.will you post the recipes?I may try something simple, since I have exam thurs. and another one next week and then I am done until Jan.
I will have a little time to try it out.
Nancy, you should be able to view the recipes I used by clicking on them in the post. They’re links!
Thanks for the play-by-play. I found it inspiring and exhausting all at the same time. Makes me want to get some cookies in the freezer. By the way, I think your kitchen looked pretty good for having done all that cooking so far!
Ha,thanks! I just need a BIGGER kitchen to really embrace OAMC! Or a least a second oven!
I think I should post the pictures of OAMM’s little kitchen. I’m not sure that is a good excuse. Mine is pretty small! 🙂
Well then there goes that excuse! 🙂
I found the links thanks, just a over site on my part.
sorry , one more question – do you have to use all purpose flour?
–would self rising work on these recipes?
I used all purpose. I’m not sure if self-rising would work or not…I hope someone with more expertise will be able to tell you!
I would not use self-rising flour for cookies. Self-rising flour already has a rising agent in it, and cookie recipes vary so much from recipe to recipe – both in the rising agent (baking powder, baking soda, or some of both) and the amount that each recipe calls for. I think using self rising might end up in a disaster. I may be wrong though, I never use self-rising, so if someone else out there knows differently, please lend us your wisdom 😛
Thanks for sharing, I am definitely not the one to ask this question to!
My family and I also enjoy baking cookies and other goodies for family and friends for the holidays. It can become long and tedious at times. Thanks for the tip on freezing individual portions of cookie dough until needed.
I have done it several ways, one year I did all of the baking at once and then froze them, not all bad, but exhausting. Last year I did a batch every day or every other day, also not too bad. This year I did 12 dozen of one kind and then went to a cookie exchange, which is turning out to be more than enough cookies for us for this year anyway. I also have a batch of peanut butter and a batch of sugar that I made the day I made the cookies for the exchange. I will use the PB and Sugar to do with my girls to make cookies for Santa.
I’m a huge fan of cookie exchanges. A parenting group I was a part of did that for years, and I loved it!
You wrote that you made six dozen peanut butter kisses, but the recipe doesn’t say how many dozen it makes. I’m wondering if you doubled or tripled the recipe? I’m gearing up for a fun day of baking and making dough. Thanks 🙂
Jen, I went back and checked, and I tripled that recipe. I made the cookies a bit smallish, and each batch made 2 dozen.
I remember when I was a kid my mom would bake on weekends and freeze the cookies because she worked full time during the week. On Christmas Eve morning, she would take the various frozen cookies and put together a tray of cookies, cover them with plastic wrap and let them thaw on the tray until that evening when we would be allowed to eat them…they always turned out great!
Freezing the cookie dough is great for fresh cookies…that is, if the dough makes it to the pan instead of your mouth! I’ve made 4 batches of cookie dough in the last two months and ALL the frozen dough gets eaten straight out of the freezer…one delicious ball at a time!my question is: i ‘flash freeze’ the cookie dough on a sheet and then transfer to a bag. My dough is soft so the dough balls still have to be laid out individually in the bag or they clump & freeze together. How do i get the dough hard enough so that i can stack inside a bag or tub without them totally freezing together??
You can see instructions on Flash Freezing here: http://onceamonthmom.com/flash…
you seriously replied about flash freezing less than 3 hours after giving birth–you are DEVOTED! now, go take a well deserved break, our cooking questions can wait.
Ha, ha! You sent an email to the info box which my husband also receives as he is he webmaster. 🙂 He asked me the answer while I was waiting on Tessa’s arrival and responded. 🙂 So I am good, but not quite that good!
That wasn’t cleaning as you went?! I think your kitchen looks amazing!