eternity in a bowl of cookie dough

[jjhunter]

gentle readers, i have a conundrum.

for many years, my signature cookie for gifts and contributions to inefficient fund-raising endeavors has been the humble oatmeal scotchie, the recipe for which conveniently located on the back of every bag i buy of nestle butterscotch morsels. on each occasion, i would smugly anticipate the happy result of my picturesque culinary efforts. ten minutes into the recipe, however, i would suddenly recollect the sheer amount of time remaining and forthcoming toll on my wrists with passionate loathing. yet i consoled myself with the thought that two hours plus of hard work was simply the price i had to pay for my four dozen allotments of unhealthy delight.

imagine my joy at discovering an intriguing new recipe of equivalent impressiveness that only required a mere twenty minutes to prepare, for a grand total of thirty-four minutes to yield the first tray of total forty-eight cookies. these cranberry orange cookies seemed an excellent addition to my usual holiday baking, permitting me to economize with twice the number of cookie-gifts for at most only a fifty-percent increase in time.

but it was not to be so. i was stuck in my kitchen for a straight four and a half hours, causing much concern and chastisement from the other inhabitants of my dwelling.

to add insult to injury, i discovered that the nestle website blithely lists the prep time for oatmeal scotchies as ten minutes, and the cook time as seven. these figures, i wish to emphasize for those not following carefully, are half those posted for cranberry orange cookies.

this is not a state of affairs that can be permitted to continue. my dignity, my self-respect, and the minor matter of my reputation as competent in the kitchen depend on closing the achievement gap between myself and those posting enthusiastic reviews on cooking websites with frequent resort to all caps. i have decided to throw myself on the collective mercy of crowd-sourcing. listen closely, dear readers, for i do not say this lightly: help me, omnomnom kenobi et al. you're my least embarrassing source of hope.

x-posted to boilingwater

Font of post changed from courier new to 'default' as per request.

Comments

[snakeling]

I ran into the same problem last week, and here's what I did:

You need two trays + insane amounts of parchment paper + some counter/table space.

Put parchment paper on the first two trays and fill them with raw cookies. If you need to do something to them when they're cooked but still hot, put only one of the trays in the oven, then put the second when approximately half the cooking time for the first tray has passed. That way you're staggering it, which makes it easier logistically. I also suggest putting the tray first on the bottom grid, then switching it to the top grid when you're changing the other tray.

For the rest of the cookies, put them on parchment paper cut approximately the size of the tray. When you take a tray out of the oven, you slid the parchment paper onto a cooling rack, then slid a full parchment paper onto the tray and pop it back into the oven.

I suggest preparing all the batches before starting to bake, otherwise you'll find that you can't keep up, which is just annoying :)

[jjhunter]

i have already converted to the cult of parchment paper, and suppressed all memory of cookie baking prior to their use. 'preparing all the batches before starting to bake,' as both you and amadi have suggested, seems blindingly obvious in hindsight. it certainly would have averted some of my more complex misadventures with staggering three different starting times whilst continuing to portion out dough.

amusingly enough, i do usually cut out all the appropriately-sized sheets of parchment paper i will need beforehand. that i didn't make the necessary mental leap lends vague credence to insinuations from certain parties not to be named regarding head-damage as a small child. ETA: and now i confirm with my careless disregard for closing html tags, etcetera. many apologies.

thank you for your suggestions; i hope our mutual enthusiasm for this most unappreciated of baking necessities will enlighten some other poor soul scrolling through these comments in equally desperate straits.

[snakeling]

Psst, if you prefer to read things in Courier New, there are ways to do that that don't involve you hard-coding it every single time :)

If you want me to show you how, let me know:
- what browser you use
- whether you want every single font on the web to display as Courier New, or just Dreamwidth

:)