Chef In Attendance

Here’s the scene: It’s the holiday’s and you’d love to make some cookies to take to work, or for friends, or for the kids, or the church coffee hour, or to curl up in a chair with and watch The Bells of St. Mary’s for the 100th time, but you’re too put off by the daunting task of making them. Or, worse yet, you start making them only to find out once you’re half way through mixing everything, that you’re missing a key ingredient. Well have I got a plan for you!

Mise en place! You’ve heard me say it before but until you try it, you’ll never know what a time saver this simple step can be. It’s a French culinary term that simply means “to put in place”. In addition to my business, I work an 8 hr, 5 day a week job. The last thing I feel like doing after being at work all day is to come home and bake. And, the last thing I want to do all weekend is to bake. Yet, I do love to bake so how do I solve my dilema? I take a few moments and pre-measure the ingredients for whatever it is I’m wanting to bake. The above picture are the ingredients I’ve assembled (15 minutes from start to finish) for 2 different types of cookies; oatmeal raisin and tollhouse chocolate chips.

The butter needed to be softened which means I’m not going to even begin cooking for a good 60 minutes. So, rather than set the butter out and go on to something else, I took the additional time to pre-measure all of my ingredients. Now, when the butter is soft, all I have to do is dump and mix. Don’t have a dishwasher for bowls? Simplify even more, use paper cups or bowls. Mix the dry ingredients (except the sugars) together and the eggs and vanillia, nuts and chocolate or oatmeal and raisins. Done!

I’m going to mix the dough up tonight and do the baking tomorrow. You can even use a small cookie scoop and line the finished dough up on a parchment lined baking sheet. Freeze the un-cooked dough. Once frozen, pop them into zip top bags and viola! cookies anytime you want them. Better than slice and bake to be sure!