Spring Baking
Today we started the spring baking, baking granola and cookies for the summer months. This takes the chill out of the air in the house now and helps limit oven heat in the house during the summer. I learned this trick from my mother-in-law. It is also a helpful not to have to do these things during garden season.
The loons are back!!! . . . and the ice is out!!! It’s a wonderful time of year!!!
April 23rd, 2007 at 8:01 pm
How smart! The problem for me is–now is the time of year when I want to get everything else done, too, in prep for the busy summer…
Anyway, thanks for the tip.
April 24th, 2007 at 6:41 am
Thats a great idea!! Just curious…how many dozen of cookies do you figure for a whole summer? I wouldnt have a clue where to begin…but I would love to try it.
April 24th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
Actually this is the first time I’m doing it for real. (Too many spring babies the last years) So I have no clue either! I’m just going to do a bunch, I probably will run out of freezer space before long and that will stop me. I think I will keep track so that next year I’ll have an idea. Probably the more one has the more one feels free to use them all the time, but if I don’t think there’s enough to last the summer, I’ll be more miserly with them.
April 24th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
That’s what I thought too - man, if I had a bunch of cookies in the freezer, I would probably just keep eating until they were gone! In June!
You know, I don’t know how you are doing it, but Mom makes the dough, and then makes the cookie balls of dough on a sheet and then puts them in the freezer, and then once they freeze, you can put them in a plastic bag, and then you just get them out when you need them and then bake them and you have fresh warm yummy cookies. I have liked doing that. Happy baking!
April 24th, 2007 at 9:20 pm
Yes, we freeze the balls of dough too. It’s nice, because then we can do one cookie sheet at a time and don’t have oodles of cookies sitting around, plus they are nice and fresh and don’t take up oodles of freezer space. I would love to do that, but it seems like I never get spring cleaning done. You probably have lots of little helpers with baking.
April 26th, 2007 at 1:38 am
Oh thats a wonderful idea..to freeze the cookie dough balls.
April 26th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
I’m curious too-how do you package the cookies and granola for freezing? Do you do other things, other than these two for summer prep? Like how about bread, rolls, pie crusts, ect.
I cannot seem to find time to just keep us stocked up with bread, let alone baking treats. This would be a great idea to just take a morning and bake treats… then it would be all done! (or maybe it would be all day for me, lol)
I too, like to run the oven, on mornings that it’s chilly outside. We like to keep our house a little on the cool side anyway, but it’s amazing how the oven warms up the living areas.
have fun!
April 26th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
I have been just baking them and as soon as they are cooled off, put them in containers or bags and pop them in the freezer, the cookies that is. That way if we’re having a picnic or a short trip somewhere I can just get them out of the freezer and not bother baking them though I have tried freezing the dough in a role and the cutting of “cookies’ to bake after partially thawed. But your idea sounds good, Carrie! I might have to do some that way too, for the warm, yummy treats! Sometimes if I need them in an even bigger hurry, I will thaw them in the microwave and then they are a bit warm then and that’s good too.
Japheth likes his granola pretty “done” and crunchy, so it stores just fine in ice-cream pails or gallon jars in the pantry.
No, Cretora, I don’t do other things and I don’t even do all my bread. I make about one-third of what we go through. I just can’t seem to find time to do more, and besides we like a variation. My husband loves the boughten potato bread for toast, as do the rest of us as well. We have a bread store that we can get breads cheaper then at the grocery store,(or really than what I can make it for I think) so every once and a while I’ll stock up with loaves for sandwhichses, and we often use it for hotdog buns. We get bagels and English muffins their too.
As for spring cleaning, Elaine, ours never gets done either. Oh, I usually try and get some done, but never what I would think is ideal!!! Our windows get washed at least twice a year, spring and fall!!!
Carrie, to address the problem of eating all the cookies too soon, you have to make big batches of maybe just two or three kinds and eat some of those when you bake them. Then after the first few times of pulling them out, you might be tired of those kinds and will leave them be . . .
April 27th, 2007 at 10:42 am
The loons are back! It must be the time of year we usually visit you! Makes me want to be there. Probably next year.
April 29th, 2007 at 4:40 pm
hey feel free to send me some cookies. 980 charlotte ave. sarasota fl 34237. hope all is well
May 1st, 2007 at 11:17 am
You inspired me, I baked 4 batches of granola last week and some made it to the freezer.
I keep wanting to get it done and finally did. The children were thankful. They like that the best. Did you ever do it in a crock pot?
May 1st, 2007 at 4:45 pm
You’re inspiring me! Somehow I feel like I’m always in a hurry when I cook or bake, but I really like this idea, especially the granola. If I make homemade granola, we go through it so fast! I just made some this morning again because the last batch I made was gone in about a week. And we don’t eat cereal for breakfast very often! My recipe only makes about a half gallon, so maybe I need to start doubling it or something. Right now it’s so good with fresh strawberries. I make almost all of our bread, and we love it! I should do some advance baking now for July and August after the baby is born. I think I’m learning that you just have to SCHEDULE things like that or they’ll never get done.
I would love to hear a loon!
May 1st, 2007 at 7:16 pm
No, I never heard of doing it in a crockpot . . . Tell me how! My oven gets so full when I’m doing lots of batches!
I’ve only had one “spring baking” day so far
I do hope to get more in than that!
Deborah, let us in on the “news” then. How many will that be and how many boys or girls?
Wilson, the Stauffers have a joke about cookies being “musty” I must have some more. I don’t think they would be that kind of musty till they arrived.
Wedding plans still on?
May 3rd, 2007 at 6:13 pm
Wow you really inspire me. And you have way more to take care of than I do.
We started mixing up cookies the night before and then baking them in the mornings
and then we have fresh that day and the rest we are freezing, also I started to make extra of my hotdishes and put them in the freezer too. So when I am in a hurry I can just take one out to thaw and bake.
Have a blessed day
May 10th, 2007 at 2:29 am
Well I had never tried it in a crock pot before last week. It did not turn out crunchy
like I wanted it to. You do it with the lid ajar or off. I just looked it up on the internet. I would just rather bake it in the oven and it is done a lot sooner. I did substitute peanutbutter for some of the oil and that was quite tasty, especially after putting cocoa in with the oatmeal. (oatmeal peanutbutter chocolate cookie! with milk!:-)