I’ve mentioned before that we make a boatload of cookies at Christmas time? Let me clarify. FirstHusband makes a boatload of cookies.
Last year, he was busy and it was up to me to make the cookies. So, I made a boatload of . . . cookie bars.
Cookie bars, while tasting the same as cookies, are much more pragmatic:
No scooping one cookie’s worth of dough at a time.
No more hours of switching cookie sheets out every 11 minutes.
No more removing cookies from a cookie sheet. one. by. one.
No more waiting for the cookies to cool on little tiny grates.
No more broken cookies.
No more!
I mixed up a batch of our cookie dough, slathered it on a cookie sheet that happened to have a short edge all the way around it, and baked it all in one shot. All the “cookies” are the same size and height for easy stacking and packing. This year, I’m perusing my collection of cookie cutters for some interesting shapes. I know that will leave cookie remnants, but we’ll just have to deal with it. Such a chore, gleaning the cookie chaff.
I’m baking tonight and tomorrow, so no photos yet, but check back! And I’m employing behaviors incompatible with eating cookies – while I’m baking cookies. I’m out of red wine, though. It will have to be Super Bubble.
I had to bake brownies for a party yesterday, so that’s the photo you get first. Oh, and one more pragmatic thing: I cut the brownies with a pizza cutter.
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Brilliant! I’m so glad I read this tonight. I have to bake for a cookie exchange tomorrow night, and I was PLANNING to start with the toughest: poppyseed thumbprints.
What was I THINKING? I have ingredients to make Hello Dolly squares (or 7-layer bars) in a 9 x 13″ pan! I’m making them first. That way, if the day goes to H-E-double-hockey-sticks like it often does, my 7-year-old won’t be empty-handed at her Girl Scout meeting tomorrow night.
Thanks so much. You may have saved my ENTIRE day tomorrow! *mwah!*
Oh man! I love Bars too… just did the same thing for my cookie bake~a~thon too… my last batch and I was darn tired of scooping… so I just laid it all out on the cookie sheet and there ya go! Great great idea!
Hugs.. Amy
Wow! Queen of Practicality! I will have to keep that in mind next year.
My favorite cookies are these — Kookie Brittle. It is technically a bar cookie, but when it’s finished cooling, you can break it up into irregular pieces. When I’ve made numerous batches of this delight, I try to break it just once and slide it into a giant ziploc and put it in the freezer. I used to have a stack of frozen dough and a stack of cooked in the freezer at all times.
I make bars, too. I haven’t made a cookie cookie in I don’t know how many years.
I’m going on a cruise and I have been thinking about incompatible behaviors to keep me on track. Funny you should mention it today!
Anything we cook like that on a baking tray or baking sheet we call “tray bakes”.
No church function or coffee morning is complete with traybakes.
When we moved to England, one of my first new friends said “you come from N Ireland – Northern Ireland make tray bakes like no other place I know!”
I like the red wine/super bubble strategy (wine prefered)–could have used that this week! There sure are lots of cookies around these days, and I have no willpower. I wrote about the cookie conspiracy just yesterday.
Brilliant!