DIY Baking: Cookies and Biscuits: Do You Have Time for That?

Baking is a form of DIY or a craft, after all. :)
Do you even have time for it alongside all that crocheting and knitting?

Quick question: How do you get vanilla crescent cookies nice and soft? I really like them, but not when they’re kind of half-hard—they have to be really crumbly. I don’t usually bake myself, but I wanted to give this a try. Any tips would be great.

Hello,

I absolutely love baking, and I have to admit, I already baked the first cookies this week. :-). 

Since my mom likes baking cakes but not cookies, I took over the Christmas baking when I was 11. 

The trick for soft cookies is to take them out of the oven before they are completely done baking. They continue baking on the hot baking sheet. But there shouldn’t be a shiny layer left on the cookies. Depending on whether I take them out a minute earlier or later, I either put the cookies out on the patio, in the cold, or let them cool in the kitchen. That way you can control the continued baking on the sheet a little. 

My two girls (4.5 and 3.5 years old) were also eagerly baking this week already. They’re very proud of that. After about half an hour of cleaning, the kitchen could be entered again :-). 

Now we’re already feeling a bit of the Christmas spirit. Next week we’ll decorate, and the first Sunday of Advent can come :-). 

I wish you all a lovely, peaceful Christmas season and good luck with your baking. 

Best wishes 
Christiane

Hey there, everyone!

I have to admit that I haven’t baked any cookies myself this year.
I’m just like Christiane’s mom: I’d rather bake cakes ;-)
But my 11-year-old daughter has already baked us some wonderful vanilla cookies … they were delicious.
And she really enjoys it!
But then I have to clean the kitchen all by myself afterward *hehe*

I think we’ll bake a few more cookies together before Christmas, since every year we give the grandmas and grandpas a little bag for Christmas.

Wishing you all a lovely, cozy pre-Christmas season!
Best, Rory

@Christiane
thanks for the tip—I’ll have to give that a try.
I just thought there was some kind of trick to the dough or something, but I wouldn’t have figured out that it’s all about the baking time and letting them cool.

I think it’s lovely that both of your children are baking so nicely. :)
 

@mützekatze:
One thing you could try adjusting in the dough is the amount of flour. Since you use flour for rolling out the dough, a little extra flour is automatically added. So I always use a few grams less.

Yes, they really get into it. The cookies may be crooked and lopsided, and vary in thickness ;-), but every single one is made with lots of love. Every day, they proudly take a cookie to preschool for dessert. It’s lovely to see even the little ones expressing their creativity :-). 

@Christiane
Thanks for the tip about the amount of flour.
Have you ever baked with coconut flour? Right now, it’s the next big trend in the food scene after coconut oil, and apparently it works great for baking. I figured it would be awesome—I love vanilla and coconut, too. They could turn out to be amazing vanilla crescent cookies. I’m just wondering if you can simply replace regular type 405 wheat flour with the equivalent amount of coconut flour?
If that doesn’t work, I was thinking of just replacing the butter/shortening with coconut oil and baking with regular flour, but I have no idea if that’ll work. Then I’d also have that coconut flavor in there.
I actually have no idea off the top of my head where I could find coconut flour around here. Well, I’m sure I can find it online.

Baking with kids
when it’s baked with love, it makes everything wonderful.

You’re really touching a sore spot there… every year I want to bake… every year I’m all set with great baking books… and every year I run out of time. Thank goodness I can count on my mother-in-law and my dear sister to keep me supplied.
In any case, I first have to get out the Christmas decorations. Then I need to finish making the gift for my son, then continue building the new corner bench… and theeeen… if I’m still in the mood, I might bake a few cookies.

@mützekatze:
Unfortunately, I have no experience with coconut at all. Unfortunately, I don’t like coconut myself, only fresh coconut. I don’t know whether it would work if you maybe replaced the butter with oil. Or maybe just part of it? Oil will probably be greasier than butter. Maybe you’d also use a different amount here. You can see it in cakes that are baked with oil. With those, the batter is much runnier. Maybe there’s a small bottle of coconut flavoring? That would be another option. However, I don’t know whether that exists.

@MyBatzi:
You’re speaking from my heart :-). Things are really busy for us at the moment too. I actually wanted to decorate this week; we’ll see whether I get around to it (I almost have to, since the first Sunday of Advent is already this weekend :-) ). Then I still need handmade St. Nicholas gifts and another Advent calendar for my little daughter. It wouldn’t do for one to get her own and the other not :-). Then of course there are the Christmas gifts. My husband’s wish list alone, ever since I also got a sewing machine, is so long that I’d have a gift for each of the next 5 years ;-). I’m making myself a priority list :-). Little by little it’ll get done. And with each piece, you get more into the Christmas spirit. And just sitting down and not knowing what you could make isn’t great either ;-).

@Christiane,
that’s exactly what I was thinking. I’ve also noticed that baked goods made with coconut flour are somehow very light in color. Well, at least that’s how they look in the photos. I haven’t held one in my hand yet, and I haven’t eaten one either. I don’t know if that’s because butter was used instead of margarine, or if it’s because of the baking time. I think I’ll have to give it a try—but first, I need to get my hands on some coconut flour.
You can’t find it everywhere, after all.

I prefer to buy my cookies ready-made.

Right now I could really eat kilos of cookies and sweets, but I’m trying not to overdo it—otherwise I’ll have to add it to my New Year’s resolutions again, and that’s always such a drag.

I haven’t baked any cookies, but maybe I could try making
my own chocolates sometime—that would definitely be great