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My out-of-office reply is turned on for the next four days because this weekend is COOKIE WEEKEND! This is one of the most important weekends of the year for the Vitaks, as we make 4000 cookies over three days with one oven.
I'm planning to document it this year and capture some of the details that let the magic happen. This year is the first without my mom, and my sister will be at her place (thanks COVID), but I'm confident my dad and I can get this done.
So if you have any questions about the process (like, how the hell do we make 4000 cookies with just one oven? or what do you do with all those cookies?), let me know and I'll try to respond. Here's the box I normally take to work each year--but not this year thanks to COVID.
Cookie weekend officially started this morning at 7:30am, which explains why I look like I just woke up. Required uniform: my Snoopy apron.
9:20am : First cookie is done! Every year, it’s always the same cookie (oatmeal raisin), because it cooks at 300’. We try to make cookies from lowest to highest temperature so the oven temp isn’t constantly changing.
We’re most of the way through Cookie #2, Chocolate Coconut Meringues. They’re a little different this year because my dad bought fancy “coconut chips” instead of the shredded kind you normally see.
With the large batches, it can mean a lot of flour (9.75 cups for a triple batch of Touch of Lemon Sugar cookies). So I tend to count out loud as I’m measuring, and I’ve been known to count like The Count at times (one ah ah ah), much to the dismay of my family.
Here’s a cookie you may never have heard of: the aptly named Kitchen Sink cookie. A pretty standard base dough (except for using majority dark brown sugar), with chocolate chips, PB chips, toffee chips, and mini marshmallows. This one’s currently in the fridge chilling out.
Sometimes we alternate between two types of cookies, especially if one takes a lot of prep time. In this case, we’re making Lemon Sugar and Lemon Stars at the same time because we have a limited number of pans for the stars.
5+ hours and 37 dozen lemon cookies later, and we are done with Cookies #3 and #4. Both these are low and slow cookies, which is why they took so long. Now we just wait for the glaze to dry on the stars before we can put them away.
Cookie #5 is Mint Truffle Cups: chocolate cookie, shaped like a cup, filled with chocolate peppermint ganache and topped with Andes Candies. Figuring out how to get the cups deep without holes took years. Our secret: an old potato masher and cocoa powder (to stop stickage).
Cookie #6 is the aforementioned Kitchen Sink. We cook these on parchment because the marshmallow can get everywhere and when it hardens, it’s like concrete.
Cookie #7, our final cookie for Day 1, is Fudge Ecstasies. These cookies have a lot of chocolate, a lot of walnuts, and not much flour or butter. They really are fudgy in taste, if not in texture.
Day #2 of cookie weekend is officially underway at 7:30am. We’re starting by baking up a triple batch of peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. These are one of our largest bakes, yielding nearly 300 cookies. I made the dough last night so we could hit the ground running.
Official shot of Cookie #8, Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip. They’re delicious because chocolate and peanut butter is one of those perfect pairings... like chocolate and most things.
Cookie #9 is Oatmeal Butter Brittle. You make the dough, press it into a sheet pan (or roll it out), and bake. When it comes out of the oven, I sprinkled a cup of chocolate chips on each tray, gave them time to soften, and spread it. Once hard, break it into pieces.
Cookie #10 is Ginger. These are rolled in a ball, then in sugar. I’m not really sure how they compare to other ginger cookies because they’re not my thing. But they look nice!
And now a quick preview of Cookie #11 prep. Any guesses?
Don’t worry, I’m not going to make you wait. The mini peanut butter cups are for Peanut Butter Temptations. You make a basic PB cookie dough, roll in a ball, put in mini muffin tins and bake, then place a PB cup inside as soon as it comes out of the oven.
Cookie #12 is the one, the only, chocolate chip. They misbehaved a bit this year and weren’t cooking evenly, but I forgave them, as it’s 2020 and we’re all a little stressed.
One of the more challenging things with cookie weekend is managing space, especially for cookies to cool before packing. We’re quickly running out of space at the moment because the PB Temptation and Mint Truffle Cups are still setting.
Cookie #13 is Mocha. This is a small batch (by our standards), making 79 of them. But if you like chocolate and coffee, you’ll probably like these.
I always manage to mess up threading somehow. Here's the rest of Day 2's cookies. https://twitter.com/jvitak/status/1337860984518545408?s=20
