How do you organize your baking?

[domestic goddess]

In these times of high prices, especially at the grocery store, I try to make as much of our food as I can at home. One of the things I most like to make is baked goods of all kinds. I hate to see precious grocery money spent on snack cakes and packages of cookies, when I can make a better product at home. It may even be less expensive to bake, but I haven't worked that out yet, because quality is the issue that matters to me. But the problem is that I can hardly keep up with consumption around here. I could bake every day of the week, if I had the time and energy, which I don't. So I am trying to find a way to schedule my baking so that I have new things made as we finish up what I have already made. I also have to keep in mind the fact that on days after I worked all night I often don't have the energy to bake and clean up. So, how do you organize and schedule your baking? How often do you bake?:help: How do you group your baking? I'm thinking of having a day for muffins, breads and cakes, and another for pies, and something else, and so on. But I really don't know what will work best, so I'm asking how others do this.

[Miss Cellane]

I live alone. I bake my sweet treat for the week sometime over the weekend. Bread gets done during the week--I mix up the dough and knead it and then stick it in the fridge before work. It still rises in the fridge, just very slowly. When I get home from work, I take the dough out, let it warm up for an hour and then knock it back and let it rise the second time and bake it.

But growing up, I was one of seven children. Mom baked nearly all our cookies and cakes. First, if you have a freezer, you can always bake a large batch of something and freeze half for later.

Bar cookies, like brownies, are faster than drop cookies, like chocolate chip cookies, and drop cookies are faster than any shaped cookie. Hunt out recipes that everyone likes that don't require fiddly bits like rolling in sugar or flattening with a fork or decorating or using cookie cutters.

Consider making quick breads instead of cookies or brownies. Pumpkin bread with nuts tastes good and fulfills the need for a sweet treat.

And you can also limit consumption. Bake a batch of cookies. Announce to everyone that those are the only cookies you will be providing for the next 3 (or 4 or 5) days. Once they are gone, they are gone. You get to decide how much you bake. If people want more, they can go out to the store and use their own money to buy more. Or, with your permission, they can bake something themselves. As a kid, I was very used to opening a tin of cookies and seeing a note: "Don't eat these. They are for dessert/Tom's birthday party/the church bake sale."

You can put a frosted layer cake in the freezer. Once it is frozen, take it out and wrap in foil or plastic wrap. It will keep nicely for at least a week (they never lasted more than a week in the freezer in my family). Just remember to take it out at least 2 hours before you want to serve it so that it can thaw. We had a lot of very chilly cakes for a while, until Mom figured out the optimal timing for thawing and for prevention of frosting licking.

Consider making double batches and freezing half. It's not that much more work to make 2 loaves of bread, rather than just one.

Also, rope in some of the family to act as helpers. If you have someone helping you, you can assembly line the baking and go a lot faster.

Mom's schedule was something like this:

Monday: batch of cookies or brownies. First we had them for dessert that night, then they were open for snacking.
Tuesday: Coffee cake baked at night for Wednesday's breakfast.
Wednesday: Batch of cookies. Same as Monday
Thursday: Muffins for breakfast. (Sometimes baked on Wednesday, depending on what the rest of her day was like.)
Friday: Cake for dessert for dinner. This would often have been baked earlier in the week and frozen. All depended on what her schedule was like (she was a substitute teacher).
Weekends: I was highly encouraged to practice my baking skills. My brothers would bribe me to bake them cookies.

[Rosemary]

I used to bake a lot more than I do now, so I do have some tricks for organizing this stuff. Many of the tips work for the other food prep that I do now instead of baking, which is chopping veggies for salad and/or cooked dishes.

- prep extra foods when you have an easy day for dinner, for instance leftovers.
- make double and freeze half.
- make up a mix you can use to save time. Here's one I used to keep on hand: http://rosemaryevergreen.blogspot.com/2012/03/whole-grain-pancake-mix.html
(it can be used for any quick break, see notes below the recipe)
- make your own dry mixes for favorites. I made some of these for my MIL for holiday gifts. I looked for recipes that didn't require any fancy steps, had liquid ingredients that I knew she would have on hand and were easy to mix together (for instance, ones that used canola oil instead of solid butter, which usually has to be added in the beginning of a recipe). This might be a fun project for kids to do.

Flour is one of the cheapest food ingredients there is - no more than 50 cents/pound at the supermarket, and way less in bulk, one might assume... so if you look at the cost of commercial baked products, and consider the poor quality of many of the ingredients (e.g. bleached flour, HF corn syrup, the unhealthiest types and forms of oils) - it makes a lot of sense to make those things yourself. Also, if it's a lot of work, it's motivation to cut back on them, and there's no bad side to reducing those foods.

[Tussiemussies]

I used to do a lot of baking, but now I don't eat sugar.

What I used to do was make double batches ans freeze one half with cookies having a small piece of wax paper between them. I also did try another method which might work well for you --I made the cookie dough, rolled them into balls, put them separated on a cookie sheet until frozen, then I put them in a freezer bag and when we wanted cookies we just had to bake them.

At one point in time I made a cookie mix that included the butter in it with a lot of the other essential ingredients that I kept in the refrigerator and with this mix you could make quite a large variety of cookies by adding a certain amount of additional ingredients to a certain amount of the mix...I will look on Google and see if I can find it...

I found a mix you can make that will make six different types of cookies. I believe the mix can be stored in the refrigerator for a month...

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/make-ahead-cookie-mix/

Another one:

http://www.laurenslatest.com/homemade-cookie-mix-cookie-party-pack-giveaway-arv-150/comment-page-3/

Hope this is helpful! :)

[domestic goddess]

Thanks, you guys. Lots of good ideas already. I knew I could count on you.
I try to keep the amount of sweets on hand to a reasonable amount, but dd and dsil will just go and buy junk at the store if we run out. And I just hate to see "crap cakes" (as I call them) coming into the house and going into people, especially the kids, not to mention the one on the way. But sometimes I just can't keep up, especially when dsil is not working and is at home. He is one of those guys who "really doesn't care for sweets" but can really pack it away. I made 22 blueberry muffins this afternoon and there are 15 left now. And we haven't even had breakfast yet! But some of them did make it to the freezer, until someone discovers they are there. I do bake with the girls, but sometimes that is more trouble than it is worth, as they nibble at the ingredients (especially if there is fruit or chocolate), get distracted and wander away, or begin to squabble. I just don't have the patience I used to have! I'm going to have to do most of my baking on Fri, Sun, or Mon, to utilize my days (or rather, nights, off). We only have the small freezer next to the fridge (side by side), and there is other stuff in it, so my freezer space is limited. I would like to get a separate freezer, but that just isn't in the cards for now. I am working on looking ahead and getting more prep done ahead of time, but so far I have not been real consistent about doing that. Still, I"m sure I can do better than I have been. I think I need to group my baking so I am making foods that require similar equipment, baking temps and times to get the most out of the time I have to give to this project. I like to see my family well fed and happy with what they have to eat, but after years of having a small family, cooking and baking for 5 taxes my organizational skills and my patience a bit. I know I can make this work, so please keep your suggestions coming!

[Glo]

When I make lots of cookies during the holidays, I make up five or six cookie doughs one day and bake them off the next day. That way, you have all the ingredients and utensils out at once; you don't even have to wash the bowls between batches. When you bake them off, all you have to clean are the cookie sheets. If you use those cookie scoops (like ice cream scoops), you can knock off dozens of cookies very fast. In this way, you'll have lots of cookies for the freezer.

[Dhiana]

I don't have time for pies myself so I will bake an Apple Crisp or Apple Cobbler instead. No messing with all that crust.

Don't mess with making muffins, just bake a whole loaf of quick bread instead.

What about making these baked items using heartier ingredients instead of just the cheapest white flour? Your family will feel more full after eating just one item instead of needing three or four to feel full.
My banana bread receipe calls for 1 3/4 cup flour. I use 1 cup of white, 1/2 cup of quinoa flour & 1/4 cup of wheat germ instead. Add nuts, add an extra egg for more protein.

Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a Day book has really helped me have dough readily available for small bread loaves and pizza crusts. Super easy.

[Wildflower]

I have a baking day once a week. I bake bread and some goodies. I am eating far less sugar these days, but DH so loves the homebaked goodies that I don't want to deny him. :) He's tall and thin, so it doesn't show on his hips at all, like it does on mine. ;)

I certainly do think homebaked goods are much healthier than the garbage at the grocery store...

[Rosemary]

a couple more:
- batch the mixing in a planned way so that you don't have to clean all the bowls and utensils between batches (e.g. chocolate last).
- when you find yourself looking for something to do and possibly contemplating your favorite time sink (for some it's TV; for me it's the computer), that's a good time to go prep something in the kitchen.
- I often do food prep while quizzing DD on school things such as spelling words. With some homework I need to be beside her, but spelling works really well, as I call the words out to her and she spells them back to me after she writes them - double reinforcement. Anything that needs to be memorized works, too.
- I have a large scoop (something like 1.5 inches) that is perfect for portioning muffins. So much easier and faster than a spoon.
- On the theme of using heartier ingredients, think beyond the flour canister. Use cooked whole grains to sub for part of the flour and the moisture. Cooked rolled oats are good in all sorts of things, from muffins to yeasted bread - and so are cooked quinoa and other grains. If you combine them with chopped or pureed dried fruit and let them sit, some of the moisture will be absorbed and then you can continue - and you've added a lot of filling fiber and nutrients. Pureed beans, either canned and rinsed or home-cooked, can be added as well.
- If you're making yeasted bread, let it ferment longer. The loaves will rise amazingly well even with 100% whole grain flours and will have more flavor. Just mix 1/2 the flour with the water and yeast and leave it while you do everything else, or overnight, at room temp. Obviously you shouldn't do this after you add perishable ingredients.

[Mrs-M]

Baking, in my house, is all about time. I schedule my baking days when I can, however, if I lived on my own I'd bake once/twice per week, but having so much always going on and always having to oversee much of it, means I have to strategically plan around family happenings and extras, such as baking.

[peggy]

With a celiac daughter, and sister, who dines with us frequently, I do all my baked goods at home. Have to.
First of all, we just don't eat that much bread and sweet goods anymore. But what i do is, I make my own mixes, as many here have suggested. I line up my containers, and following my recipes, put all the dry ingredients in my containers for several meals. Depending on the recipe, I can make three to five mixes, sandwich bread being the 5 mixes. My gluten free recipes I developed for ease, so taking one of my mixes I can have fresh sandwich rolls in under 30 minutes.

Pizza a bit longer because I let the dough rest for a bit before I bake, but with something like that, you can bake several crusts ahead of time (partially cook) and freeze, so you can have pizza crusts whenever you need them. Makes it very easy

Biscuits and sweet rolls are easy cause you can make this dough the night before and just cut out your biscuits and, in their pan, refrigerate them. Then in the morning, simply preheat your oven and pop them in. Could not be easier. Scones too. In fact, lots of breads can be done this way, as I think someone suggested. Make the dough when it's convenient, then bake when you need it.

Tell us what baked goods you need in an average week and we can help you organize it.