This is our fifth year of putting on Confection Selection! Every year, our church ladies make batches upon batches of their specialties — gingerbread men, frosted sugar cookies, fudge, peanut butter balls, peanut butter blossoms, cherry chocolate blossoms, carrot cake cookies, spritz, raspberry almond pinwheels, almond bars, brownies, blondies, 7-layer bars, chocolate crinkles, cappuccino crinkles, peanut brittle, peppermint bark, caramels, truffles, banket, cinnamon swirl bread, cream cheese braid, date nut bread, derby pies, cappuccino fudge cheesecake……and that’s just what I can remember off the top of my head! We set up all these goodies on trays and plates around a semi-circle of tables, set up a pile of styrofoam clamshells with tissue paper, a scale, and a cashier. We let people know about it through flyers, invitations, public service announcements on the radio stations, and an announcement in the news paper. People from the church and community come through, pick up a clamshell and put on a glove, then peruse the tables, filling their clamshell — or, we hope, clamshells — with their own unique selection of tasty treats. Then they go to the scale, where a volunteer weighs their clamshell, notes the weight, and passes them on to the cashier, who charges them $5 a pound. All of the money raised goes straight to the Tri-City Pregnancy Center.
So, this past week I have been quite busy producing confections to be selected this weekend.
I have had several successes, so far, and slowly my successes have outbalanced my failures. At the beginning of the week, I wasn’t sure if that would be possible.
I was most excited about trying a new sugar cookie recipe called “Marbled Holiday Greetings.” I made a large sugar cookie dough, divided into six portions, tinted and flavored three of the portions (pink with peppermint, green with lime, and purple with almond), then combined one colored with one plain portion to make a marbled 12×12 square of dough. Well, at least, the recipe told me to make a 12×12 square. Mine was not quite square. I think the closest I ever got was 11×13. Then I used a pastry cutter purchased specially for this purpose to cut them into 1×3 rectangles. Again, that is what the recipe told me to do. Some were 1×3, but they looked rather big. Most of mine turned out at about 3/4×2. I can’t draw a straight line, I can’t cut a straight line, I can’t sew a straight line, so I don’t know why I thought I’d be able to roll a straight line. My cookies were often uneven and none were exactly the same size. So then, after baking them, you’re supposed to pipe words onto them – peace, joy, or noel. Well, about 3/4 of the cookies survived until the next night; the rest broke. Turns out these are rather fragile cookies. Then, it turns out I’m not too good at piping words; plus, they were rather small for getting even four letters onto them. Matt predicted I’d get one dozen frosted. I got about four dozen, I think, but all with “joy.” My wrist and back hurt and I ended the second night pretty frustrated that so much work (all Sunday afternoon and evening, plus Monday night) and so much dough (I did a double batch, and each batch was supposed to make 12 dozen cookies) was all for naught.
Sunday afternoon and evening I also baked up some oatmeal raisin cookie dough I had made up and refrigerated a few days before. I made small cookies out of my triple batch and was planning on calling them “Oatmeal Raisin Bites.” Well, I was pulling them in and out of the oven while working on the “Marbled Holiday Greetings” fiasco, and it was Matt who noticed about the time the last pan came out of the oven that they didn’t quite look like they were baked through all the way. Sure enough, it was just questionable enough to make them unmarketable. So we have about 5-6 dozen of those in our freezer.
Sunday afternoon and evening I also worked on finishing up with some dough for “Mocha Truffle Cookies.” I was also crossing my fingers about this one, because I had taken a risk and, making a triple batch, had substituted finely ground coffee beans for the instant coffee granules the recipe called for. Sarah makes that substitution as principle, so I was following good company. Well, this one at least was a smashing success. 4-5 dozen “Double-Shot Mocha Truffle Cookies” will be making an appearance Saturday. That made 1 for 3 on Sunday.
Tuesday evening I stayed up until midnight, making carrot cake cookies and wrapping presents. Since it was a new recipe, I actually only made one batch to start with. However, I left the baking powder out of it. I didn’t realize it until I went to make another batch, and realized I’d never gotten it out. I made a triple batch after getting the Matt-seal-of-approval even after making a doubtful face when he first saw what I was making. One sheet into the triple batch and I mixed in additional flour and increased the baking temperature. The rest of those cookies turned out great; however, they took 12 minutes per sheet to bake, so it was quite time-consuming. By midnight I still had 1/3 of the batch left to bake. I wrapped it and put it in the fridge.
Wednesday night I was so exhausted from the late night before, from being up several times off and on with a coughing Jaeger during the night, and from my busy outing day, that after a 45 minute conversation related to Confection Selection planning — in which I was reminded that there had been several things I was going to check on at the church while I had been there that day, that I had forgotten to do — I went to bed.
Today, Thursday, I spent the whole day from eleven-thirty on baking. I have made “Yeasted Chocolate Bread” (2 out of 3 turned out; 1 broke while coming out of the pan), finished the carrot cake cookies and drizzled them with a cream cheese glaze, tried one recipe of “Pumpkin Spice Tassies” which were tasty but rather ugly and thus not marketable, produced two pans of marbled brownies, and have two pans of blondie brownies waiting to be cut. Today’s success rate was pretty high, I thought.
I still have a few batches of peanut brittle and two pounds of peppermint bark I plan to make. If I’m not exhausted after Bible study tonight, I will attempt to do that tonight. Peanut brittle is really something that must be made without boys around, as it is a process that does not admit interruption.
I washed my serving dishes and have them packed and ready to travel. I began on the place cards for each of the goodies I know are coming, and now need to fold a bunch of blank ones. There are probably several other things I need to do. I hope I will remember them before Saturday morning.
Dear Mystie, I am amazed at your energy and determination in making all these cookies!! I think I would have given up after the first day!!! Good for you!!
Maybe you can try one recipe a month during the coming year, and have all your trial and error out of the way before next December!!!
I wish I were in your town! What a great way to get some wonderful Christmas treats!!! I hope you raise LOTS of money!