Cookie Monster!

In September, Dave and I went on vacation to Gloucester and Maine. In Bar Harbor, Maine, we stayed at a lovely bed and breakfast place, The Atlantean Cottage. While we were there, I got a few ideas about cookies. . . .

You see, each evening, our B&B hosts put out a tray of home-baked cookies in the butler’s pantry.

Typically, we’d be out and about for dinner or whatever, and once we got back to the B&B, we’d grab a decaffeinated hot beverage and a cookie or two and head up to the room to settle in. Yum!

At breakfast, I got into a conversation about the cookies. The chef clued me on a couple of hints, that seem so obvious - you know, one of those, why-didn’t-I-think-of-that moments.

He said for starters, most bakers don’t cream the butter and sugar enough when they are mixing the dough. No less than 10-15 minutes, he said. Okay, I can do that.

It’s the next part that was the face-palm moment. He said that he makes up the batter, makes up a small batch for the evening, then drops the rest of the cookies onto a tray covered in waxed paper and freezes them. Once frozen, he drops them into a zip-type storage bag, then bakes the one or two dozen for the evening. Wait, what?

I love baking cookies, but I don’t do it that much, because I really don’t want to have all those cookies around. My sweet tooth is bad enough, but Dave can inhale a double batch of chocolate chip cookies in a few days (Don’t tell him I told you that!) (Notice how I’m 100% blaming him for any extra cookie consumption around here . . . *a-hem!*)

So I decided to put the process to the test. Because who doesn’t like a couple of freshly baked homemade cookies now and again?

I usually make the standard Toll House cookie recipe from the side of the bag. With one exception. To give the cookies a bit more structure I add one cup of flour to the recipe. I also eliminate the salt if I’m using salted butter.

Following Brad’s (the B&B chef) advice, I mixed and mixed the butter and sugar before adding the rest of the ingredients.

Then dropped the cookie dough onto a baking sheet - but only about 12-15 - one sheet full, enough for the evening and lunch the next day.

Mmm. Yum. Fresh cookies. But just enough, not trays and trays.

Then I measured out and dropped the remainder of the batter onto a waxed-paper covered baking sheet.

Then put the whole tray into my freezer. About an hour or so later, I popped them into a zip-bag and put a piece of tape with temperature and cooking time on the resealable bag.

Oh my goodness! Fresh cookies. And just enough for the two of us. Awesome.

Turns out, works just the same for snickerdoodles.

I now have three different kinds of cookies stored in my freezer all ready to defrost and pop into the oven.

Now, let’s hope the power doesn’t go out!

(Or maybe we should hope that it does, but just long enough to defrost the dough, then back on in time to bake the cookies!)


Happy Stitching!

Joan Ford