Christmas is coming….

As Christmas drew near last year, I was a bit panicky.  We were having some rough financial times (my husband was living 6 hours away and paying for two places was tough).  What could I do that would be meaningful but not cost a lot?  As I mulled over options, I threw out SO many ideas, crafts really aren’t my thing, quilting something would take WAY too long, buying things for everyone was way to expensive this year.  THEN, my current job (teaching cooking for the local high school after school program) led me to a stroke of brilliancy.  Well, I though so anyway.

I had ALL the ingredients on hand to do a lot of baking!  And I do mean a lot.  I buy flour in 50lb bags and sugar in 25lb bags.  Vanilla comes in 16 oz bottles in our home and baking powder in 5lb bags!

I thought rather than baking gifts and giving them to everyone already baked, what if they were made, frozen in balls, ready to pop on pans, complete with instructions and any ‘last minute’ preparations!  I was on to something!

So, I got the boys geared up and we were ready to spend a WHOLE day baking… well…. 1/2 way baking.  We did a test of each batch of a dozen, just to make sure the flour was enough to not end up flat and not so much that they stayed as balls.  After the test was done, we used our Pampered Chef cookie dough baller and put a whole sheet pan full of balls in the freezer for about an hour.  I did discover that putting wax paper on the sheet pan made for easier removal later.

After they were frozen, I put them in dozen increments in a seal a meal bag and sealed them shut.  I wrote directions on the outside of the bag for baking times and temperature.  I also stapled small ziplock bags of cinnamon sugar, powdered sugar or any other item that might be used as a ‘finishing’ to the bag.

We made molasses, snickerdoodle, chocolate chip, thumbprints (those came with a jar of homemade jam), and chocolate crinkle.  I had several reports of how those cookies saved someone a lot of last minute hassle as we gave our gifts in early December.  I kept some and the boys loved it when we had a quick evening snack of fresh cookies.  AND, because I froze some in increments of six, I could even justify baking some of each child’s favorite!

Even if you don’t give these as gifts, I would sure recommend the “baking for a day” method of preparing cookies.  The mess was not horrible (we washed and cleaned as we went) and the assembly line that we formed helped make it speed along in our quest for so many cookies.  Yes, the floor did need mopped and we did have flour on every surface but the ease of popping ready to bake ovens from the freezer to a pan is pure joy!  AND, knowing that there is nothing artificial in these cookies makes me one happy mama!