Yesterday, I baked all day. From 9-5. I took a break for a chat with a friend at lunch, but then I actually forgot to eat. The cookies on the left are Pumpkin Pie Drops with Browned Butter Drizzle. Yes, they’re yummy. I made seven different kinds of cookies, about 20 or so dozen, I’d guess. It took a day and a half to make them all. I’m crossing my fingers that most of them sell, though my family wants plenty of leftovers.

I generally like to bake and the last couple of days were fun. Even as an experienced baker, though, I learned some things as I went. The cookbook I had had said not to use insulated cookie sheets, but that’s all I had on hand. You can use them, but you have to add as much as 10 minutes to the cooking time. Which is annoying when you’re making 20 dozen cookies, one or two dozen at a time. These work well. I have one and though the thickness does increase the cooking time a few minutes, they seem to cook evenly and the cookies brown pretty well. The best investment I made were these cooling racks. In my small kitchen, it was great to stack several dozen cookies in a single space.

The most used ingredients were butter and flour. Flour, from a cost standpoint, is pretty cheap. A five pound bag can be as little as 2 or 3 bucks. And I only went through maybe 1/2 bag. Butter, on the other hand, is expensive, about 4-5 bucks a lb. I went through about 3 lbs of butter. Next time, I might try to buy direct at about 1/2 the price.

I’ll be away for most of the day selling the results of my labor. I promise a WoW Wednesday post later.