Cupcakes!

So, I suppose I just let the last year and a half slip by without doing anything over here, huh? Sorry about that. Forgive me? I'd like to do a better job of working up my side business, so I should probably plug in on the old blog and figure out what happened to my Artfire link. I deleted the sidebar link today, but it hadn't been working for a while and I never took the time to look into what had gone wrong. I feel like I've squandered a bit of time and money with my ArtFire subscription, since I haven't been taking full advantage of it.

Why not put a cupcake picture in the middle of a post?

I've been thinking a fair bit about why I haven't gotten more stuff done in the last couple years,** since I feel pretty incredibly lazy knowing all the things I should get done and then I add my Pinterest obsession to the mix and there's a million more things that I want to do and be and, well, it can leave a person feeling kind of down about themselves. I'm not usually a down about myself kind of person, but I certainly feel like I've been lacking motivation and follow through and I want to get to the bottom of it so I can find the ladder and climb out of whatever pit of procrastination I've fallen into. I've traced it to a few things: two years ago we moved from a 3 bedroom, 1050 sq ft condo into a 5 bedroom, 1600 sq ft 80 year old house which needs a fair bit of work, with very little know-how and very little extra money. Two years ago, I gave birth to our third child: a wonderful lot of laughter and a bit of chaos. And it all seems to come down to one word: overwhelmed. And it's debilitating. And paralyzing.


** I know many of you think that I'm some kind of superwoman who gets loads of shit done and has it all together. And to be fair to myself, in the last two years we moved, had a new baby, raised that baby to be a happy and healthy two year old (on top of parenting the five year old and the seven year old), replaced our kitchen ceiling, painted all but a few rooms of the house, put in a raised vegetable garden. I also did P90X twice and lost 42 lbs, which means I'm down to pre-wedding weight. But there are also many afternoons and nights where I think I should be doing something... getting my basement organized, painting and organizing the craft room, decorating my house properly, organizing the rest of my house properly (I still feel like I haven't fully moved in on some days!) and I just sit there with no get up and go.


And sometimes I think that perhaps I'm afraid of failure so I don't push myself to succeed. I'm afraid that my results will never look like the cute pictures on Pinterest and I'll be disappointed in all the effort that I expended to get to the failed result. And when I face the reality of these fears, I'm saddened at myself because it's kind of new to me to be so afraid to fail, or at least to be aware of the fear and for it to paralyze me like this. But the overwhelmed feeling is contributing to the fear because I feel like there's so much to do that I can't possibly get it all done, so why even start?

So I need to do something. I'm not sure if this is the right place to start, but waiting for myself to get the motivation and energy to get the craft room to a beautiful and work-able place hasn't happened either, so maybe I have to work backwards. So I agreed to make some cupcakes for the dessert auction portion of the annual banquet at the university I work at: The King's University College. And I took it on as a little bit of a promotion challenge. I knew deep down that not many people would take my business cards and it probably wouldn't result in much new business. But my cupcakes went for $105! For one dozen Salted Caramel Chocolate Cupcakes (oh! they were sooooo delicious!). And one person liked my Facebook page. That was enough encouragement for me to get going on doing a better job of this business.

I decided to work on my business whenever my husband is out doing comedy (more on that later, perhaps), so that'll give me at least once or twice a week, which is more than I was doing before! Bit by bit.

Baking with Bokeh + a little rant

You know, all you need to do to make your baking look yummier is grab some natural light and a low F-stop and you get that nice blur in the background that means you can't tell when it was I last gave my counter tops a good scrub (usually daily, but you never know). These banana oatmeal muffins were pretty good, except the big ones stuck to the cupcake paper like nobody's business.

(Here begins the rant; if you're not one for rants, just skip this part, enjoy the picture. We ate muffins; have a nice day.)

I found the recipe on Allrecipes.com. By itself it would be a fine muffin recipe. I probably should have followed the recipe as written just to have actually made it. But I read the reviews. This is my biggest beef with Allrecipes.com and it really has little to do with the site itself, but much more to do with the users of the site and how they incorrectly use the star system and the reviews. Seriously, no matter how many stars the recipe has, you still need to read through at least 10 reviews to figure out whether you should even bother making the recipe or not and what changes you should make to the recipe should you decide to make it. I mean, it's one thing to make the recipe once, decide it needed a little more *whatever* and write a review saying as much and still rate it well. It's another thing to change 3-5 things about the recipe, declare it fabulous and give it 5 stars. It's like going to Home Depot, going through the self checkout, going home and doing the online survey and saying you got fabulous service at the checkout. "I rock at scanning things and swiping my debit card." I have occasionally seen comments by other users who get upset with previous reviewers who rate a recipe poorly based on the changes they made to the recipe. That makes sense, but it is equally unhelpful to have to read through countless reviews in order to determine what recipe is 4.5 stars. I don't know why someone just doesn't write up their own recipe with the changes they made and then everyone can rate that recipe with 5 stars as written.

This recipe for Banana Oat Muffins has the same issue, of course. These muffins were pretty good made with the changes that most people suggested. They weren't complicated changes, apple sauce for oil, brown sugar for white, add some chocolate chips, whatever. No big deal. I would probably make them again, but follow the recipe as written. 1/3 cup of oil isn't that bad for a batch of muffins and maybe then they wouldn't stick to the cupcake paper so badly.

So that's my rant. I don't know why I don't just use some other site, other than it's just as unpredictable if it's a good recipe or not. I implore you, Allrecipes users, write your own recipe or rate the recipe as written.

Wordless Wednesday

Helping with the Easter Baking

More Cakes

So there were some more birthdays and other cake-worthy events in the last 10 months, too. I guess I didn't make cakes for all of them, but I made some cakes. I may have said this before, but I make cakes for the kids of our good friends and co-church planters. This Star Wars Lego cake was requested for the January birthday. (Star Wars Lego cake? Nothin' like a simple cake, eh? Boys....)

The techniques used here: buttercream transfer (YouTube how to) and painting on buttercream and of course, basic piping. I printed out a coloring page that the birthday boy and my husband found on the internet. I filled in only the grey shape of the Imperial Walker for the buttercream transfer.  Then I painted on the buttercream transfer using a mixture of real vanilla & black icing paste for the detail.

For the sides, I just piped flat monochromatic lego-sized stripes and piped dots on the top of them for the Lego look. I saw this idea here. From what I can remember, it was a hit. I was in my first couple weeks of our diet & exercise program, so I passed on the cake and ate a protein bar instead. I was told it tasted good.

The sister of a friend of mine commissioned me to make this monkey cake for her son's first birthday. It turned out okay. She looked through my Facebook cakes album and found the picture of Zoe's 2nd birthday cake, which I didn't think was one of my better cakes, but oh well, that's what she picked.

I'm always so nervous doing commissioned cakes. People tell me my cakes look professional, but I'm not so sure. I can tell the difference when I look through professional cake albums vs. my own. I'm not down in the dumps about this or searching for compliments, I'm just telling it like it is. I make nice cakes. Some are better than others. Most are better than these and I never make spelling mistakes, though occasionally I make a blunder and end up with a cake that unintentionally looks like boobs.

(It's supposed to be a purse, but it is kinda pathetic, even if it didn't look like boobs.)

Then there was a wedding. I wasn't really supposed to make a cake for this wedding. I'd thought of offering in advance, but the wedding date was only a few weeks after my due date, so I wasn't sure I would be feeling up to making a cake. But then we were visiting with the couple and while I know they're not big cake people (she's celiac & he doesn't really really care for cake), one of the reasons they opted for no cake was because it was expensive for something they didn't really care for. But everyone's grandma wants them to have a cake, if only for the opportunity to take pictures of them cutting it.

So, this was my first attempt at a gluten-free cake. I used this recipe and the bride told me it was delicious. I'll have to try it sometime. I didn't have leftover cake for me to try, so I was really hoping it was yummy.

For the roses, I made them out of fondant using this technique found on YouTube. Seriously people, I don't know how to do anything. I just Google it and figure it out. The beauty of the Internet is that everyone wants to be an expert so there are free instructions out there for just about everything. LOVE! I was pretty happy with this cake, though the seams were kind of obvious, but not if you take pictures from the right side!

Now, the final cake I haven't shared yet. Simon turned three the day after I began my 10 month blog hiatus. This was his cake. He loves basketball.

I was pretty pleased with the basketball colour I achieved for the fondant. Not always easy to get exactly what you're looking for. I used a bowl to make the shape and then used a lot of icing to make it more ball shaped and less bowl shaped underneath the fondant. It's round enough.

If you had a birthday in the last 10 months, Happy Birthday. If you have one coming up in the next 10 months and need a cake, let me know and we'll work something out.

Crafty Birthday

In March, we had a birthday. Two actually. Mine and my daughter's. Mine totally gets overshadowed by the child's. I am totally okay with this. I made cupcakes to send to school on her actual birthday. They were strawberry cupcakes made with this Martha Stewart recipe. Honestly, I've been a bit underwhelmed by Martha's cake recipes. I made a perfect white cake (or something like that) from her site, too. And it was kind of dry. I really like that the ingredients called for in both the cake and the icing were simple, real ingredients, so that's nice. No food coloring and no artificial flavours.

While I have a this great cupcake icing kit from Bake it Pretty, with a number of large, fancy tips, the recipe didn't make enough icing for me to frost them all cupcake-shop fancy. I still need to make some cupcakes with that kit. Personally, I prefer a lot less frosting on my cupcakes and I like the homemade look of just frosting them with a spatula and dipping them in sprinkles.

Last year, I made a 3 shirt for my son's birthday. My husband insisted I put the large 3 on the back of the shirt, since jerseys don't have the numbers on the front. Against my better judgment ("It's not a jersey..."), I complied and my son has insisted on wearing it backward from day one. Funny.

I made a six shirt for Zoe. Pink pink pink. She loves pink. That six is sparkly fabric paint. I used the freezer paper stencil technique to make the six. So easy peasy. I also recently discovered in a different t-shirt embellishment project that using freezer paper as a stabilizer for the jersey knit fabric is super helpful. I could draw on the paper side and then cut the paper and the fabric at the same time instead of fussing with slippery fabric.

So, I sent my birthday girl to her favorite place in the world (school) with 30 cupcakes to share with her classmates and teachers with strict instructions not to return with any leftover cupcakes (remember how I lost 25 lbs this year?). She wasn't feeling great. I knew she wasn't feeling great, but she hadn't vomited and she wanted to go to school. On her birthday. She gets a birthday crown. She hadn't talked about anything else since January. This kid rarely gets sick. And when she does, she can time it to Thursdays (no school) and weekends. She just got her days off (her birthday was on a Wednesday).
By 10 o'clock I'd received a phone call from the school saying she was laying in the infirmary, having thrown up. Of course. So, I picked her up and she spent the rest of the morning laying on the couch at our friend's place while I took her brother to the paediatrician.

She spent the rest of the day at home, napping a little, but mostly being okay and feeling a little sad. We made pizza for supper.

The teacher saved the cupcakes until Friday (3 day old cupcakes...mmmm) and she got to celebrate with her class then.

Then we had her home party on Sunday. It was her request. And it worked out rather well because she invited her grandparents and as it turned out, my mom could make it on Sunday. She requested a Barbie cake. I looked for a picture of barbie that was mostly face, so she could have nice big eyes so she wouldn't look scary and ugly in buttercream, but alas, there were no such pictures to be found in Internet land. When Zoe announced Barbie was beautiful, that's when I knew to stop fussing with her eyes and just let it go. My cake decorating mantra: "You are working in a medium that is meant to be eaten."

She is kind of ugly though.

Baby Shower Sugar Cookies

So, here are the cookies I made for yesterday's baby shower. I think I bit off a bigger bite than I was prepared to chew with these cookies. They were as much work (or more!) than a cake! Each one was like a mini cake!

These were probably the easiest, since they were only two colours, so it just required outlining, flooding, waiting for that to dry (I waited overnight) and then piping the pink decorations.

These were the next easiest, since they are only three colours and only 2 layers, meaning that I didn't have to wait for the second layer to dry before piping the third colour.

And these were the most complicated, since there is actually only 3 colours, but also three layers in some places. I wasn't very impressed with how these ones turned out.

Something funky was going on with the icing as it dried. It kind of...crystallized? I don't know: it turned sort of white in spots. It's probably most obvious on the pictures of the onesie cookies. And I couldn't get the icing to stay shiny when it dried. I used honey and not light corn syrup since I didn't have any. I wonder if light corn syrup would make them stay shiny looking. They looked ok, but not shiny like I wanted. Matted. And the white spots... ugh. Happily most people are not as fussy as I am and everyone ate them with no problems.

Rolled Sugar Cookies

Remember last Halloween when I made these cookies? It was mostly about trying out this recipe for icing, which was nice, smooth, shiny and professional-looking. I'm a big fan. I made it again this morning, substituting honey for corn syrup. I hope that doesn't turn out to be a mistake. I worried the honey wouldn't allow the icing to set properly. I did drop a bit on the counter and a couple minutes later it was starting to crust up, so that's a good thing.

In the Halloween cookies post, I mentioned I was going to try this cookie recipe since I found my dough a little difficult to work with. I did try it out and it is a pretty lovely recipe. The flavour could stand some enhancing, as many of the commenters noted, but I'm sure once the icing is on, it won't matter much.

I'm planning to decorate the cookies up all fancy-like for a baby shower I'm headed to on Sunday. I bought this set of cookie cutters by Wilton and I plan to decorate the cookies similarly. We'll see how it goes. I'll keep you posted.

Cheesy Veggie Biscuits

So last night I made this veggie chowder recipe from Passionate Homemaking. I just found her blog a couple weeks ago, but I think I read about 2 years worth of archives! Lots of great stuff there. It's a yummy recipe, though I would follow her advice and take it easy on the cheese. I think I used 2 cups, but it's a little too cheesy for me. Z isn't really touching anything with multiple ingredients lately, but S was a big fan. Even D ate it and he's not a big veggie fan.

 image source: Passionate Homemaking

I was planning to make biscuits to go along with the chowder and when I saw the bits of chopped veggies left on the chopping board, it inspired me to modify my mom's biscuit recipe. Here is the result:

Cheesy Veggie Biscuits

2 cups flour
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vegetable seasoning (I had some that looked like Montreal Steak Spice, but I'm sure Mrs Dash would work too)
1/3 cup cold butter
1/2 cup mixed minced veggies (I used cauliflower, broccoli and carrots)
3 oz shredded cheddar cheese (about 1/2 cup? I just threw some in)
3/4 cup + 2 tbsp buttermilk (or use milk and substitute one of the tbsp of milk for lemon juice/vinegar, let it stand 5 minutes before using)

Preheat oven to 400 F. Mix dry ingredients together. Cut in butter. Mix in veggies and cheese. Add buttermilk and stir together just until combined (too much mixing = tough biscuits). Roll out dough onto a lightly floured surface. Cut into 16-20 squares. Transfer to an ungreased baking sheet. Bake for 12-15 minutes.

I made these during the 20 minutes of simmering to cook the vegetables in the chowder recipe. While they were baking, I finished up the chowder recipe. It worked well as far as timing goes. Z liked these a lot and made up for not eating the chowder by eating three biscuits.

Coffee Cake Recipe

I found this recipe through CRAFT Magazine online, but it seems like they haven't kept the links working for this recipe. I'm not sure if that's some way of try to get you pay for archives or print versions or something, but I printed this one out when it was first posted and I'm glad I did. Another smart blogger, Yasmine of Love Live Survive Home saved a jpeg so you can access the recipe on her blog. I had to show you this original recipe because this recipe is what I would call an illuminated recipe: beautifully illustrated. So, I picked up the jpeg from Yasmine's blog and if you click on the picture below, you can print out the beautiful recipe from Elena Nazzaro of frenchtoastgirl.com.

And you're going to want to not just print this beautiful recipe out, but you're going to want to make it and eat it because it is TASTY! I made it for church this morning and it was a big hit. Thankfully it made enough for us to take some home, too (yum!).

Here are the modifications I made for this morning's version. This would go in the "OR TRY" section
1/4 cup craisins & 1/4 cup white chocolate chips instead of the 1/2 cup chocolate chips.

And... pretty much that covers it. Oh, except either my loaf pans are really small or she means something totally different than I do when she says "loaf pan." The first time I made this recipe, it was all over my oven because there was waaaaaaay too much batter for my glass loaf pan. So, this time I used a bundt pan and while it didn't rise to the height of the bundt pan, it worked well. Two loaf pans would have worked, too.

If I do say so myself, this was fantastic. The white chocolate melting with the brown sugar in the swirl topping caramelizes and... mmmmmmmmm.....

Cake Decorating Tips #1: Starting Right

I've been sitting on this post for a couple weeks thinking that I must have to make a cake sometime soon, so I can fill it with relevant pictures relating to what I'm talking about, but it just hasn't happened. But since I've had a couple more questions and thought I should just do it even without the perfect pictures.

So, I end up sharing many of my tricks with people in person, in emails or facebook wall posts or whatever after I post cake pictures. I should note that nearly all of these tips and tricks came from the woman who taught me basic cake decorating. I own almost none of them. They could all very well be straight from a Wilton decorating book, but I don't own one and that's not where I learned them.

I'll have to do this in a couple of installments. This first one is super duper important because it gives you the base from which you start. If you start with a broken cake, you're going to be fighting a losing battle through the whole process. Later, I'll give you some tips for working through some of the problems you might encounter, but let's start by doing it right the first time, so we can avoid the problems.

This is the kind of start you want to your decorating. 

No holes, no crumbs, no breakage; just nice crisp edges.

First thing: Prepping the cake pans. This is usually one of the first instructions in any cake recipe. Grease the pan. Grease and flour the pan. Put a layer of parchment on the bottom of the pan, whatever. I no longer obey the instructions on the cake recipe. Because I have a better answer: Dream Cream. It is magic. Here is the recipe:

Dream Cream

1/2 cup shortening*
1/2 cup canola oil
1 cup flour

Mix them together thoroughly, until you get a nice smooth, creamy paste. I usually start by creaming the shortening, adding the flour and then the oil slowly. Store in the refrigerator for up to a respectable amount of time (I'm really loosey goosey about this and refuse to reveal how long I might store this in my fridge)... seriously, it's shortening, oil and all purpose unbleached flour. Do these things spoil?

Spread liberally on your pans, especially the corners. Then, when you turn your cake out of the pans onto the cooling racks, you should require no shaking, no knives, no hoping, nothing. You should be careful not to turn them over any distance from the cooling racks, because the cake should fall out of the pan and you don't want it damaged in a fall. In fact, I usually put my cooling rack upside down on top of the cake, hang onto both the cake pan & the cooling rack and turn them over. Lift off pan. Seriously. Dreamy.

The cake recipe. Since taking a little course in, what was it?... 2003? I've mostly just used cake mixes. Our instructor said she couldn't really make a cake for much cheaper than a boxed cake mix. And, well, Betty Crocker knows her cake. In the last year or so, I've ventured out to find cake recipes to make from scratch. This is my go-to chocolate cake recipe (except I omit the chocolate chips**). The frosting is good, too. The cake recipe is vegan (I think; unless there are hidden animal products in those other ingredients that I don't know about); the frosting is not (butter & milk). Something about making the cake from scratch makes me feel good. I like knowing what's in what we eat. That Chocolate Peanut Butter cake was good, too, but you should read my notes about it. The recipe as written is not as conducive to cake decorating because it's quite fragile. So, make a cake mix, make your own, whatever. Bake and learn.

I often bang the air bubbles out of my cake batter before I put it in the oven. If it looks all bubbly on the top, I gently shake and bang the cake pans on the counter to pop some of the air bubbles. I'm sure our basement neighbour loves this (too bad he never gets any cake). It makes a little denser cake, a little easier to work with and then you don't end up with big air pockets in your cake.

Actually baking the cake. Here is another part of the recipe I don't follow. Typical cake mix baking temperature is 350 degrees F. Unless you have a convection oven (which I don't, but I would love to have one. If you do have one, follow your awesome convection oven instructions...), pre-heat your oven to 300 degrees. Bake your cake at 300 degrees for 10 minutes, turn the oven up to 325 and bake for another 10 minutes, and finally turn the oven up to 350 and bake for the rest of the time recommended in the recipe. This helps your cake to bake more evenly and not peak in the centre. You'll have less to level off later.

After the cake is baked (insert a toothpick in the centre of the cake; it should come out clean), remove from the oven and let it cool in the pan for 15 minutes (set a timer). Then turn it out onto a cooling rack. Cool completely at least 1 hour. Turn it over so the top doesn't get too indented by the cooling rack. I like to bake the cake the night before and let it sit overnight. I cover it with a tea towel so it doesn't dry out.

 

As you can see here, I did not level this cake the way I outline below. 

It was practically level when it came out, so I just pressed down it with my hand covered in a tea towel.

I read that tip somewhere on the Internet (sorry source I don't remember you).

Leveling the cake. Here's how you get that nice flat edge to your cakes: you cut the rounded top of the cake off and turn it up side down. If your cake has risen higher than your cake pan, put it back in the pan and run your longest serrated knife along the top of the cake pan to keep it level as you cut off the top of the cake. If it hasn't risen that high, you're going to have to eyeball it, or buy a fancy cake leveller/trifler (which I want to buy anyway, but I don't have one, so it's not like you must have one) to cut the top of the cake off. This is the best part of the cake. Snack on this while you decorate (or feed it to your kids to appease them while you put off making their dinner as you decorate a cake for someone else), ensuring you keep the crumbs far from your precious icing.

Well, that's it for this time. Hopefully the next installment won't take me too long. Happy baking!



*I have no answer for trans fats and cake decorating. ... sorry. That's the best I've got. I guess you could try a non-hydrogenated margarine, butter... or lard, I guess. I have never used those. One day they will ban trans fats altogether and what will all the cake decorators do?
**As much as I like real chocolate, chocolate chips are designed to retain their shape after baking. If you ate the cake warm, it would likely be very tasty and chocolatey, but if you ate it at room temperature or cold, you have cold chocolate chips in your cake. I don't like this. Besides, leveling the cake would remove a lot of the chocolate chips which, while tasty for the decorator's children, kind of defeats the purpose.

Give Thanks

Well, this is over a month belated, but once it got near Halloween, I thought I would save this to share in time for American Thanksgiving. If you read as many craft blogs as I do, you can't help but being reminded once Halloween is over, that Thanksgiving is on its way. I'm still not sure I fully appreciate the magnitude of the American Thanksgiving holiday, except that someone told me it's almost bigger than Christmas. That's helpful, I guess.

 Can you see the shadow of my hands in the photo? 

I took this picture with no flash on my point & shoot.

Here is the pie I made this Thanksgiving. I was happy with the crust. It worked this time. The first time I made pie crust on my own, I didn't have a pastry blender and I didn't cut the lard pieces small enough since I had read a tip that it was good not to make them too small. I guess I didn't go quite small enough because when I rolled it out, I could see pieces of lard that then stuck to my rolling pin and... well, it wasn't pretty.

 I did a little bit of playing in iPhoto with these pictures, to warm them up a bit. 

They had a bit of a greeny tinge, which isn't so nice when you're thinking pie.

After yesterday's light post, you'll probably notice that something is a little off about these pictures. Our good camera was in the shop over Thanksgiving. It gave out on us during what was supposed to be a lovely little fall photo shoot at Prairie Gardens & Greenhouses. Fortunately it was still under warranty, and while the guy at McBain said it would take 6 - 12 weeks to get back (I was freaking out: that meant it could get back after Christmas). Happily, they under-promised and over-delivered and it ended up only taking 4 weeks and I had it back in time for Halloween. The point and shoot we have has a "food" setting, which I used for these pictures. Maybe it helped. I don't know.

We have some plastic letter stamps which I usually just let the kids use with the playdough, but they're the closest thing I have to alphabet cutters. I had to be extra careful since they are stamps and not cutters, so I had to gently dig the cut out letter from the inside of the stamp after I cut it in order to use them on the top. You have to look carefully to see the raised word "GIVE" above the cut out word, but it's there.

Happy Thanksgiving preparations, my American friends!

How to freeze cookie dough

I'm sure many of you domestic divas already know this fabulous trick of the trade, but I promise no one told me about it and I just figured it all out myself. So let me tell you about my Low Mess Cookies...

First of all, I love cookies. Oatmeal Chocolate Chip are my favorite, but I'm not that picky (just omit the raisins, please). I have a serious problem with cookies. Like, if they're in my house, then it's not long before they're in my belly and then once in my belly, my thighs beg for them, and the belly always gives in. Cookie cravings usually come to me on cold-ish to cold days (many days in Edmonton) in the evening. And I have always thought that it is somewhat pointless to haul out the flour and sugar and all the other ingredients to make just a dozen or so cookies. But it is a bad idea to give my thighs that many cookies at once. And even if I manage to forget about them for a couple of days, the rate of flavour-deterioration in homemade cookies is incredibly fast, that the few-day-old cookies are something of a calorie-full disappointment.

So to solve these problems (ever the problem-solver, I am), I thought I would freeze the cookie dough, just like Pilsbury does, you know, in a roll that I could cut nice little round cookies and bake them at a later date. This was quite disappointing. Although I have never purchased Pilsbury cookie dough, I would hope that they cut up better and don't flatten at the bottom end. And I still had the work of cutting them up, which I didn't like so much.

So, I tried again. This time, I prepared the cookie dough, baked a dozen cookies and then (using my Pampered Chef small scoop), I scooped the cookie dough onto the pan just like I was going to bake more, except for I placed them right beside each other, instead of giving them the usual 1-2 inches of baking room. I got the rest of the dough on one pan and, instead of the oven, I popped them in the freezer. I let them freeze (an hour or so) and then popped them into a resealable freezer bag.

Now, whenever I want cookies, I preheat the oven, put a dozen frozen cookie balls on a baking tray and by the time the oven is hot enough, the dough has thawed a little.

I pop 'em in the oven for 10 minutes and eat warm, melty-chocolate, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Mmmmm....

Although they do retain their frozen cookie scoop shape, they're just as yummy as if they were flat. If you have a toaster oven, you can easily just make 2 or 6, just what you need for the evening and always serve delicious, fresh baked cookies to unexpected guests or the kids as an after school snack.