Random moosages as I see fit.

Sometimes I like to do things.  Sometimes I like to do things obsessively.  Like the time when I decided I wanted to make cookies and then made 192837912873 dozen.  Ok, so not really that many cookies.  And I often do make large batches of things, like cookies, but it’s normally because I received a request to provide cookies for a large group of people or something.  The other weekend, I made a lot of cookies for no other reason than I felt like making cookies.  So I made cookies.  I made a lot of cookies.  I made four different types of cookies.

The thing with making a lot of cookies is that you have to somehow get rid of a lot of cookies.  I didn’t have a large event in which to foist off all these cookies.  So I ended up making the cookie dough, baking only a portion of the cookies, and then portioning out the rest of the dough and freezing it.  That means I can have fresh baked cookies quickly now.  And I can do things like bake only six cookies because all I wanted was six cookies.  Of different types.

Anyway, I ended up making peanut butter chocolate chip chocolate peanut butter chip cookies (partly because I just really like saying that), the coffee-cinnamon-fudge cookies, oatmeal pecan chocolate chip cookies, and oatmeal pecan cranberry cookies.  I’m only realizing now that I’ve never posted about the oatmeal related cookies before.  Which is strange.  As the oatmeal pecan (or walnut) cranberry cookies are probably the ones I’m requested to make the most.  I guess I’ll post about them some time.

I probably made 2-3 dozen of each type and froze the majority of the dough.  I like to pre-portion the cookie dough so you can just stick the balls (or discs, discs are better really) on a cookie sheet and put them straight into the oven.  I know some people roll them and slice (I used to) and some people just put a whole tub of dough in the freezer.  I think pre-portioning makes the most sense because a big reason for freezing the dough is so you can have cookies quickly at a later date.  If you freeze a tub of dough, you have to defrost it before doing anything with it.

I do recommend that you flatten the dough into discs before freezing so as to have quicker and even baking from frozen.  The peanut butter chocolate chip chocolate peanut butter chip cookie will puff more on the peanut butter side than on the chocolate side if you leave the dough as a frozen ball rather than a frozen disc.  Both sides will cook through, but you’ll have a lopsided cookie if that’s of concern to you.

Baking from frozen may require a few extra minutes at the normal oven temp.  Also, when freezing, lay the discs out in a single layer on a sheet pan or something and leave overnight.  The next morning you can gather all of the frozen discs into a Ziploc for storage and not worry about chipping away at a huge block of dough later.

Remember how I had extra pie dough after making the personal apple pies?  I decided to make toaster pastries with the leftover dough…but then that changed into hand pies because it was easier for me to punch out rounds from the dough and I have a tendency to overstuff things.

After making the pies, I ended up lumping the leftover dough back into a ball and sticking it back in the fridge.  I came back to it a day later and rolled out a 1/4″-thick sheet and punched out 3.5″ circles.  I rolled the circles out to a thickness of about 1/8″ and then plopped in a tablespoon or so of super-reduced cranberry preserves (my typical cranberry sauce reduced to the point where a scoop of it will pretty much just stick to the spoon when held upside down and yes I still have cranberry sauce because I buy a lot of cranberries when I’m able to get them and then stick them in the freezer because I’m immensely fond of cranberries).  I brushed the edges of the bottom crust with some water and stuck another round on top and crimped the edges with a fork.  I also had a weird lump of dough left after punching out all the circles, so I just rolled it out so that it was mostly symmetrical and filled it and folded it over on itself.

I brushed milk over the hand pies and put them in the oven at 425degF for 20min and then reduced the temp to 375degF and baked them for another 20ish min.  I didn’t sprinkle sugar over the top, but I think I will next time.  I don’t make my cranberry preserves very sweet so I think maybe a little extra sugar on the crust would be nice for next time.

The resultant pies were pretty.  Using a super-reduced filling really helped.  I was half afraid that I would have some volcanic blowout like I normally do when I bake with cranberry.  There was only some slight oozing this time.  NBD.  The crust browned very nicely and puffed up a bit like puff pastry, which is the main reason why I ended up calling them hand pies instead of toaster pastries.  I don’t think you’d be able to fit them into a toaster slot.

Also, they tasted pretty good.  But really, it’s pie crust and cranberry.  How are you going to go wrong there?