As I mentioned earlier, I really scaled back and I'm glad I did. My original plan was to turn everything in this (Sunday) afternoon. However, G had 3 art entries to turn in and those could only be turned in on Friday or Saturday. Since going to the fairgrounds Saturday was out, that meant I'd have to turn her things in on Friday. So new plan - make my cookies on Friday and turn them in. Bake all my breads on Saturday after work and turn them in today.
Most of the recipes I'm using this year are tried and true ones that I've entered before. I had 5 cookies to make on Friday...
First up were the Biscoff (no bake) Cookies. Recipe HERE (Thanks Isabelle!)
No problem.
Next was a Meijer shopping run for everything else I'd need this weekend. They had an mPerks coupon for 5% off grocery items so I had a list and waited til Friday morning.
Second in the line up were Nutella Sea Salt Stuffies. Recipe HERE.
I remembered from earlier to make small balls of Nutella and put them in the freezer overnight so everything went off without a hitch.
Up next were Honey Pecan Bars. Recipe HERE.
For some reason the first crust I made came out of the oven with huge cracks all over the bottom like it was too dry. I remade the crust before pouring the filling in, then finished baking them and put them on my bun rack to cool.
My fourth cookie of the day was the only new one and it was something I had trialed on Thursday night, then decided to tweak on Friday. It was for the Dairy Cookie category where you have to have two dairy ingredients in your cookie. I decided to make cookies using butter and cream cheese and sandwich them together with raspberry jam. My mom used to make cream cheese cookies when we were kids. She used a box of cake mix and some cream cheese. I don't know what else was in them but they were a really sweet cookie that she squirted out of a cookie press and sandwiched together with raspberry jam.
I thought the cookies I had trialed on Thursday night were too thin. I added more flour and an egg on Friday and tried again. This cookie came out definitely thicker but tasted doughy. Visually it looked good, but I wasn't thrilled.
Moving on though, I went ahead and made my last cookie. Pineapple iced coconut macadamia cookies. Recipe coming this week.
This is a very easy cookie to make as you mix almost every thing together in a food processor, then dump it out in a bowl and add flour, then scoop it onto a cookie sheet. I remember putting a teaspoon of salt in and thinking that seemed like a lot of salt. I took a little taste of the batter before adding flour and it was salty but I went ahead and finished making the cookies. Once the cookies came out, I tasted one... and they were salty. Hmmm. Maybe they were salty because the pineapple icing is really sweet? I made the icing and ate another cookie. That didn't fix the taste. Next I covered the entire cookie in icing. Moderately better but the cookie just didn't taste like I had remembered it.
Now it was time to go. I had decided I was leaving the house by 5 pm at the latest. Entries were being accepted until 8 pm but I didn't want to wait until the last minute. I was plating my cookies when I decided I was not going to take the cream cheese raspberry cookies or the pineapple iced coconut macadamia cookies with me. They just didn't taste right.
This is what I turned in Friday night: Nutella, Honey Pecan, and Biscoff
After turning my items in, I came home and cooked a pound of bacon to prep for Saturday then went to bed as I had to be up at 4:30 am to go to work.
Saturday, a small miracle happened and I got off work on time!
I made Loaded Potato Rolls as soon as I got home. No problem.
I remade the pineapple iced coconut macadamia cookies while the potato rolls were rising. SO glad I remade them. They came out just like I remembered and I figured out why the first batch was so awful... I'd forgotten the sugar!
Next were Pumpkin Pecan Rolls. I had made these for the first time on Thursday. They turned out pretty good.
I remade the raspberry cream cheese cookies while the pumpkin pecan rolls were rising. Still not 100% happy with the taste but decided they were presentable enough to turn in.
Finally, I made my Honey Oat Bread.
The only "problem" with baking breads for the fair is how time consuming it is as you have to wait for the dough to rise at least twice for each recipe. Usually I will start the first rise of my second recipe during the second rise of my first recipe. Since I'm making other baked goods too, I will try to squeeze in less time consuming items like cookies during the rises. I have a double oven so sometimes I have two ovens going at the same time too. It's multi-tasking to the max and sometimes I get confused...
Last year I put some rolls in the oven to rise. I thought the oven was off and I was going to use the residual warmth to help my rolls rise. Well, the oven was actually on. I didn't realize it until the plastic wrap covering my rolls started melting and smoking... stuff like that...
So this year, I was pretty happy that I didn't have to do too much multi-tasking and I was feeling pretty sane... but then I messed up the rise on my Honey Oat Bread. I think I actually let it go too long and the middle collapsed during baking. By now it was after 1 am. The bread was not presentable. Last year I stayed up late baking bread items. I had one last thing I was trying to make and I fell asleep on the couch... then slept through the oven timer going off (deets HERE, and hey, looks like I had problems with that darn Honey Oat Bread last year too!) I decided the prudent thing to do was to go to bed and remake it in the morning.
I popped out of bed at 7:30 am today and remade the bread. I tried a different size pan but I'm still not happy with the rise. It looked better than the first loaf though so it went to the fair.
This is what got turned in today...
Top row: Honey Oat Bread, Pumpkin Pecan Rolls, Loaded Potato Rolls
Bottom row: Raspberry Cream Cheese Tea Cookies, Pineapple Iced Coconut Macadamia Cookies
My life has been so busy this summer I didn't even try to put out a garden. My neighbors tonight gave me two bags of fresh tomatoes. I gave them loaded potato rolls and pumpkin pecan rolls. I then caught up on who was running what this weekend. I'm a little sad I didn't race this weekend but, in reality, I don't think there was any way I could have gotten everything done.
Cakes are up next weekend but I'm going to get back to running this week too.
How was your weekend? It's the last weekend before school for us Center Grove families :(
You are amazing! I have never heard of Biscoff. Where do you purchase it? The recipe sounds delicious! I may have to try it out.
ReplyDeleteI buy it at Meijer. I have also seen it at Walgreens. It's by the peanut butter. Biscoff is a cookie so it's a spread made out of cookies. It's AMAZING on apple slices.
DeleteWOW! As always just WOW! The cookies were delicious, thanks for the samples! BUT I forgot the darn Pumpkin Pecan Roll! So bummed! I tried to hide the cookies from my kids and husband (aren't I just a peach!) but they saw me walking around chewing and asked why I was eating cookies when there wasn't any cookies in our house...ooops. So I had to share. Also speaking of Biscoff, I also had some hidden in the pantry (behind beans...kids don't look behind beans!) But Sunshine was looking for something and said: "we have BISCOFF! Mom! How could you? Had I known it would be gone by now" I said: "well this is exactly why you didn't know". :)
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