Homemade cookie premixes

I've made homemade premixed pancake/waffle recipes before.  In my house every minute saved in the morning pays back three fold, so having the dry ingredients already mixed is a win in my book.  I have since, however, adopted the "make a zillion waffles and freeze them" mantra, which saves even more time.

So when I came across this pin from fakeitfrugal I had one of those, "why haven't I done this" moments.  It has apparently taken me 35 weeks to get around to doing it, but here we are.  Twelve premix cookie batches!

I don't really make cookies all that often, maybe that's the reason for the lack of urgency.  It is nice to have some piping hot, fresh out of the oven cookies for an after school snack from time to time.  The downside was that a full recipe makes a lot of cookies, even after plenty of cookie dough snacking, (which means I never feel like eating the cookies by the time they come out of the oven) so I'd stick the rest in the frig.  Dough in the frig means way too much nibbling temptation for me, cookies after school for three days, three kids who were sick of cookies by day 2, and a bag of baked cookies that sat in the pantry for two weeks until they were rock hard and tossed. 


These batches are really half a normal recipe.  Betty Crocker clearly knows how to make bank with those $2.50 cookie mixes!  This means I'm getting about 16 cookies a batch, probably 18 if I didn't snack on the dough.  That's enough for two per kid with a few leftover for friends, Mom, Dad, and maybe one for lunchboxes the next day.  No dough in the frig, and no cookie burnout!

There's really no secrets here.  If you need recipes to get you started, here's my favorite Oatmeal cookie recipe.   The aforementioned fakeitfrugal has posted some here too.    I've tweaked these to my preferences.  I subbed oil for butter for starters.  When I tried the fakeit sugar cookie recipe I didn't get the consistency I needed with room temperature butter, plus coconut oil adds another layer of yum to most cookies!  I've had hit or miss luck with butter cookie recipes baking up flat and weird (but still edible!) anyway, so sometimes I use shortning too.  I know, I know, my kids will probably start growing a third ear from the GMO soybean genes.  I really try to avoid this stuff 90% of the time but sometimes a fluffy cookie is worth the risk.

 You probably already have a favorite recipe, start there.  All you have to do is premix all the dry ingredients.  I like doing it assembly line style with four big bowls lined up, and my ingredients lined up beside me all TV cooking show like.  One thing to keep in mind is the baking powder rule.  Since brown sugar has a high moisture content, make sure you use only baking soda, not baking powder in recipes that call for brown sugar.   Write the baking time and ingredients to add on a quart size baggie and you're in business!  I store mine in the freezer for extra freshness, and have a spot in the back of a drawer for the empty bags until I'm ready to do another batch. 

 

I'm excited to have these on hand for play dates, sleepovers, and those spur of the moment times that always seem to come up.  It really doesn't take much time to put these together, so I encourage you not to wait 35 weeks to try it!!