The Baking Thread

[leggo PE]

Wow! @mudpuppy, thanks for the super informative and motivational response!

I think, I might be following you in your ways? I canned tomatoes (for the first time, and I didn't grow them myself, either -- I think you did?) earlier this year. (12) 24 oz jars worth. 

That's helpful to know the amount of time it took for you and your wife. Mr. Leggo offered to help, but I think he's rethinking this offer and I might be on my own to make the cookies. I might wring him into being the delivery person though.

I think I'll come up with a pretty detailed logistical plan to figure out how much butter and sugar I need to buy, and then also figure out the timing of the making of the doughs and the bakes. Especially because, like I mentioned above, some of the cookies seem to want to rest for several hours, or overnight, or overnight for 2 - 3 nights. That would help me a lot in not having to make so many different doughs all on the same day, and I could start off my Saturday with the baking of those doughs while I go and make the other doughs and, eventually, the icing.

 

[kevo_55]

I'm partial to spritz cookies this time of year.

 

[frazil]

Wow, @leggo PE and @mudpuppy!! That’s impressive. I’m not much of a baker, more of a cookie connoisseur. So if you want to send a box of cookies for feedback, I’d be happy to assess.  My favorite Christmas cookies typically are rum balls, pfefferneuse, and these orangy, nutty, chocolate-covered things that I’ve never been able to find a recipe for.

 

[akwooly]

First attempt at deep dish pizza

 

[leggo PE]

Wow, @leggo PE and @mudpuppy!! That’s impressive. I’m not much of a baker, more of a cookie connoisseur. So if you want to send a box of cookies for feedback, I’d be happy to assess.  My favorite Christmas cookies typically are rum balls, pfefferneuse, and these orangy, nutty, chocolate-covered things that I’ve never been able to find a recipe for.

Well, I plan to do rum balls! I did pfefferneuse for a cookie swap a few years ago, and made so many, my husband got sick of them so I'm skipping them this year.

 

[LyceeFruit PE]

im gonna make chocolate crinkle cookies and ginger rye cookies this week, hopefully tonight/tomorrow night.

probs tonight since i think ill be working late tomorrow night. 

im not allowed to bring baked goods into the office so itll just be for us and a couple of friends.

Boyfriend accidentally bought the huge bags of the nestle tollhouse chocolate chips so at least ill have plenty of chocolate for the crinkle cookies 

 

[JayKay PE]

@leggo PE, if scheduling is difficult, you could always make something like springerle cookies (but don't press/add a design).  They need to 'dry' like 24-hours before you bake them so they can develop flavor, and they taste way better when they get older, so that might work if your time is crunched?

 

[JayKay PE]

Made some doughnuts for one of the electric shop guy. He’s hauling ass and helping me put some power in for my project. 
 

 

[JayKay PE]

Money shot. Added like three more layers of glaze to build it up. 
 

 

[leggo PE]

Those doughnuts look awesome! Are they fried?

I'm planning on getting started on my cookie baking tomorrow, if I can come up with the four stupid priority mail flat rate boxes I need to ship cookies to the four households I unfortunately won't be able to deliver to locally this holiday season, due to our reinforced stay-at-home order. My goal was (and still is, if I can find those boxes by Sunday) to ship the cookies out on Monday, and finish baking on either Saturday or Sunday.

But, I tried to order those boxes at USPS.com the other day, and it said the boxes were out of stock in my local post office, and that I'd have to wait 3-5 business days for them to ship from somewhere else... I'm still in the waiting time and since they haven't shipped yet, I'm nervous they might not arrive in time for shipping out on Monday...

 

[JayKay PE]

Those doughnuts look awesome! Are they fried?

Nope!  I'm terrified of frying things, so I am constantly searching for baked doughnut recipes.  I tried one for apple cider doughnuts and these are sour cream doughnuts.  Both batches I did not get to eat one, since they were for co-workers.  Tbh, I might make another batch of these since they were fairly simple to make?

As for Christmas cookies...I have been in a super hard baking rut over the last couple of weeks and just...haven't been doing anything.  Another co-worker, the one who wanted the black forest cake, has his birthday at the end of the month.  I'm not going to be here (hopefully), so I'm going to bake him a NYC-style cheesecake sometime next week.

 

[leggo PE]

Boxes attained!!

Cookie baking will commence! I think I'll be starting with the fudgy bourbon balls and gingerbread dough tomorrow!

 

[leggo PE]

I am 3.5x through baking all of my cookies! I've done the fudgy bourbon balls, the peanut butter cookies, the trios (which were definitely time consuming but look so cute that I think it was worth the fuss), most of the gingerbread cookies (I have my scraps from my first round rolled into a ball in the fridge, to roll out, cut, and bake later), and the spritz cookies all baked. I still have the remaining gingerbread and the tiny, salty, chocolatey cookies to make, which I plan to do later today. I also still need to decorate the gingerbread cookies -- I plan to make a royal icing and then decorate with sprinkles, sugar, etc.

What have I learned throughout this process? My main takeaway is that sprinkles are not meant to go in the oven... Only sugars and nonpariel's should go on before baking. I messed up a couple of my spritz cookies due to this, but it's okay... I easily ended up with 4 dozen spritz cookies, so a couple that don't look the nicest is fine with me!

 

[leggo PE]

Also, Mr. Leggo is a former bike courier (he once owned his own bike courier company, way before Postmates was a thing!) and will be bike couriering the cookies that getting shipped to the post office, and the ones that are getting hand delivered locally as well. Yay!

 

[JayKay PE]

Made some cinnamon star bread yesterday for brunch, but I didn’t use cinnamon and sugar as my base. I have a “pumpkin spice” seasoning I make every year that uses things I like: cloves, all spice, nutmeg, etc. everyone liked it. I wonder if this can be modified so it can prove overnight instead of requiring me to get up ultra early to make it?

 

[leggo PE]

Made some cinnamon star bread yesterday for brunch, but I didn’t use cinnamon and sugar as my base. I have a “pumpkin spice” seasoning I make every year that uses things I like: cloves, all spice, nutmeg, etc. everyone liked it. I wonder if this can be modified so it can prove overnight instead of requiring me to get up ultra early to make it?

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Sourdough that ish!

 

[leggo PE]

Give me 2 hours on a Sunday night and 6 dozen gingerbread cookies, and I will make royal icing and decorate them all:

 

[SoVA Eng]

Joining here to try and pass the time from looking at the WTTS board. Here are my sugar cookies for Christmas

 

[leggo PE]

Joining here to try and pass the time from looking at the WTTS board. Here are my sugar cookies for Christmas

Wow! Did you make, decorate, and package those yourself? They look so professional!

 

[SoVA Eng]

Wow! Did you make, decorate, and package those yourself? They look so professional!

Yes, I did  Thanks! I finally found something I actually enjoy to do in my spare time haha