Just like my grandma used to do, sometimes I like to have a big baking day in an effort to crank out food for busy days ahead. My most recent baking day happened right after our basketball season ended and just before our soccer season started. I was feeling the crunch to get ahead before life turned crazy again. Allow me to share pictures of this adventure and my best tips for having a successful baking day!
How to Have a Successful Baking Day
- Block out several hours to focus on being in the kitchen.
- Make a plan. Write a list of items you want to bake.
- Don’t bite off more than you can chew. (Literally, because of the baking. I’m so funny.)
- Gather ingredients so you can be efficient. (Many baking ingredients overlap in recipes, so it’s nice to get out what you need and leave them out to use in a variety of recipes.)
- Plan simple meals for the day or plan to serve leftovers for lunch and/or dinner. I’ve found that it’s too difficult to cook regular meals and bake extra food all in one day!
Ready to see how my recent baking day played out?
First, I made a list of baked goods I wanted and needed to make.
- Stove-Top Granola (x2)
- Orange Glazed Poppyseed Bread (x2)
- Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls (x2)
- Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies (x4)
- Pancake Mix and Muffin Mix
I gathered all my ingredients.
I ground two rounds of flour, both Soft White Wheat (pastry flour). My poor Nutrimill has seen better days, but it still gets the job done!
Once flour was ground and all other ingredients were gathered, I mixed up a double batch of Orange Glazed Poppyseed Bread. I put it into the oven and realized I’d buttered one-too-many bread pans. What’s a girl to do?
I decided to stir up a batch of Stir-and-Pour Bread to fill my extra bread pan. It’s wayyyyyy too easy! (It’s a yeast bread recipe so I needed to use hard white wheat for this one. I had some on hand in the freezer already, so this made mixing up this bread very simple!)
With the Poppyseed Bread in the oven and the Stir and Pour Bread mixed up and rising, I started a double batch of Stove-Top Granola.
Once done, I moved the Granola off the stove and poured it onto a cookie sheet to dry a bit before transferring it to a jar. The Stir and Pour Bread went into the oven and I paused my baking to do a Biology lesson with my kids. But wait!! Why not get two jobs done at one time?? While I was reading Biology, I put my kids to work unwrapping Hershey kisses for my Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies. (I’d picked up a few packages of kisses the day after Valentine’s Day – what a score!)
Biology finished and boys onto their other school work, I headed back and mixed up a double batch of Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies. I frozen them all in cookie dough balls to have on hand for an upcoming weekend when we were hosting teens.
Suddenly I realized I was starving, so I prepped a very easy lunch of Beanie Weanies. #noshame
Next, I cleaned my kitchen. Why? Because after all that baking, it was a mess. Also, next on my baking agenda was Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies. I wanted to keep these gluten free to serve at a high school gathering. Three of our high school youth group need to eat gluten free, and these cookies are perfect! But not with all the wheat flour flying around my kitchen. So I cleaned up so I wouldn’t cross-contaminate with wheat before baking a quadruple batch of these easy cookies!
Breads done, granola done, cookies done…I packaged everything up for the fridge, counter, or freezer.
Finally, I ground one more batch of flour so I could fill my Muffin Mix and Pancake Mix containers. Having these on hand saves me tons of time and effort, and these are our favorite mixes of the collection.
You can bet I needed to do some extra kitchen cleaning after all these hours baking! I had my kids mix up Tuna Salad for dinner, which we ate on my freshly baked Stir and Pour Bread. Then we headed out for our boys’ Choir Concert. Never a dull moment.
Why Have a Baking Day?
- Because if you’re going to make a mess, you might as well make a big one.
- Because many baking ingredients overlap between recipes. It’s nice to get out ingredients like baking powder, oats, butter, and flour and use them for several different recipes before putting them away.
- Because taking a few hours to bake in one day provides baked goods to last you for many days.
- Because it’s nice to have baked goods in your freezer to pull out for your family’s needs on busy days or to share with others who have needs you become aware of.
- Because everyone likes cookies.
What are your favorite foods to bake?
I’ve looked at grain mills for a long time but since my family is grown and gone I’m not sure if it would be worth the investment … I DO still cook and bake often. Any thoughts?
Truly, you would love it. It makes baked goods taste SO MUCH BETTER. If you bake a lot still, I’d definitely consider it. I will use mine forever, for sure after my family is grown and gone. I’ll never go back! :)
Hi Barbara;
I received a wheat grinder as a gift and it has been wonderful using it (tho very loud). The baking turns out beautiful. I’m actually waiting for a counter-top style to come in so I can grind daily. My grinder is getting old and I hope to gift it to another person. The new one is a “gift” to myself but everyone will benefit, 8-) To me, we could eat out all the time and I could spend money doing that or save and Invest in good food here. If I didn’t have so many meals to cook, I would hesitate to buy a grinder too, Barbara.
Maybe you could make bake for someone else as well?
Birdie
There’s something so satisfying about having pre-made food in the freezer. It feels like money in the bank!
On Sunday they asked for volunteers to make rolls for our monthly dinner. I thought of this great recipe I have that I’ve been wanting to teach my daughter, so I volunteered. The only preparation I’ve done is buy the ingredients. I will make them on Friday and possibly freeze them until Sunday afternoon. I just needed to get inspired!