In the food service industry, prepping is crucial. Preparing ahead of time cuts your time in half when it comes to cooking for a crowd or getting ready for a party.
I have created more than a dozen dry mixes that I use in the bakery every day. I am going to share these mixes and the recipes to bake the finished products through the next few weeks.
Cookie mixes are my favorite because all you have to do is grab a couple bags of the mix, add eggs, some kind of oil (butter, shortening or oil) a little water and some vanilla and voila! In less than 10 minutes you’re scooping dough onto a cookie sheet. Sounds easy doesn’t it? It is!
Essentially what you are doing with these mixes is preparing the dry ingredients to your recipes ahead of time which is a real time saver especially if you prep multiple batches.
For the chocolate chip cookie dry mix you will need:
1-1/2 cups granulated sugar
1-1/2 cups packed brown sugar
The two sugars make up your first bag
Twist tie the bag and set aside
Next you will need 4-1/2 cups of all purpose flour
2 tsp of salt and 2 tsp of baking soda
This makes up your second bag.
That’s it! Easy right? The reason we keep the sugar separate from the flour is that in most recipes it calls for the sugars to be creamed with the shortening and egg. Then you add the other dry ingredients so it is easier to have to separate bags.
At the bakery I build to 6 mixes per recipe. In other words for this chocolate chip recipe I would make enough dry mix for 6 batches of cookies. At home for the 3 of us I would probably make 3 batches to store away for later use.
Now when you want to make a batch of cookies here is the rest of the recipe.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Dump the bag of brown and white sugars into a mixer bowl and add 2 cups of shortening, a 1/4 cup of water and 1 tsp of vanilla extract. Cream these ingredients with a mixer or by hand with a sturdy spoon. Next add 4 large eggs and mix in until incorporated.
Next, dump the second bag with the flour, soda and salt into the bowl with the creamed ingredients and mix until just incorporated. Do Not Over Mix! Then by hand add 4 cups of chocolate chips and fold in until just incorporated.
Drop spoonfuls of the dough onto parchment lined cookie sheets. If you want more uniform cookies use a spring action ice cream scoop to form the dough and drop onto the parchment lined cookie sheet.
Bake for about 12 minutes or until browned and not wet in the middle.
Here is the full recipe:
1-1/2 cups granulated sugar
1-1/2 cups packed brown sugar
2 cups of shortening
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup water
4 large eggs
4-1/2 cups of all purpose flour
2 tsp of salt
2 tsp of baking soda
4 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
This recipe makes 4 doz good sized cookies.
Here is a pic of my shelves at the bakery.
On these shelves I have mixes for chocolate crinkle cookies, snickerdoodle, chocolate chip cookies, brownies, ginger snap, cornbread, frosted sour cream cookies, oatmeal cookies, scones, chocolate chocolate chip cookies, jam thumbprints, and peanut butter cookies.
I will be sharing more mix recipes over the next few weeks so watch for more.
Also you can take your own recipes and make mixes out of them like I did. It makes life a whole lot easier when you have something already prepared in the pantry. -MM
