Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Tuesday at the Table

Once you've worked as a pastry chef, people don't forget. These days, my baking is usually limited to home, family gatherings, and staff birthdays. Occasionally I take on larger jobs as a contribution to a cause I support, or as a favor to a friend, such as the task facing me now: 250 big cookies for the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians, meeting in Seattle this week. Occasionally when I do special baking like this, I use my unofficial baking logo:

I'm in the process of baking the big cookies now. The one request made was for salted chocolate chip cookies. Though I love Toll House cookies, I don't have very good luck making the recipe off the bag. They always turn out flat. I was looking for a fatter, chewier cookie and found just what I was looking for at mybakingaddiction.com. {recipe} I made a good thing even better by sprinkling each cookie with flaked salt prior to baking. YUM.

Our family loves molasses cookies, and I found this recipe for big cookies at farmgirlfare.com. {recipe} To these, I added some coarse vanilla sugar on top for a little added flavor and crunch.

Lastly, I decided on another well-loved favorite - Snickerdoodles. A quick search found these lovelies at one of my favorite foodie blogs, smittenkitchen.com. {recipe}

The baking is nearly complete and soon I'll be on to packaging. Then, the best part of all - sharing the sweet treats! Hope you get a chance to try one of these recipes soon and share some home-baked goodness. It's a good thing!

7 comments:

  1. Oh you'll have to bring some to the next class. Will trade for scraps!

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  2. Oh my goodness, these seem delicious! I have never seen or had chocolate chip cookies with salt, that sounds delicious! My mouth is watering. So the recipe on the Tollhouse cookies, I'm the same way, sometimes they are flat flat and others they turn out perfect. It has something to do with using butter vs. margarine or maybe it is the consistency of the butter, I never can remember, and I guess that is why sometimes I get those pesky flat batches!

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  3. Baking Snickerdoodles as a kid is one of my favorite "in the kitchen" times with my Mom! I also recently had a chocolate bar with peanuts and sea salt - divine! I never thought to try it in a choc. chip cookie though, fabulous idea and since I know I love that salt/sweet combo. from the bar, I am definitely going to do this the next time I make cc cookies. Thanks!

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  4. Your cookies all look great! I'm so glad you enjoyed my recipe. I love the idea of sprinkling them with coarse vanilla sugar. :)

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  5. Big cookies are so much fun, and those look great! My favorite molasses cookie recipe is in one of the King Arthur Flour cookbooks, but I'll have to try the one you made. I have used one of her recipes for bread before and it was really good. Thanks!

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  6. Debbie I love your "unofficial" baking logo and how you package your cookies in what looks like wax paper bags. Too cute! My older son loves Snickerdoodles so I'll have to try the smittenkitchen link.

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  7. I have the same problem with TollHouse cookies. My husband always says they taste delicious so not to worry about it, but I hate to take them anywhere when they look so flat. I'll give the recipe you linked to a try next time. Thanks for the link!

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