Week 3: Sourcing, testing (bonus recipe list!)
Dense with thoughts on ingredients and packaging + my favorite recipes
Week 2 Reflections
It’s been hectic around here between holiday travel and a busy work schedule... But cookies are still on my mind (and hopefully yours)! 🍪🍪🍪 This week is dense with info on sourcing ingredients and packaging (and as promised, my favorite recipes at the bottom).
I think I have a first draft at what recipes I’m going to include in my box. 🎉 This year I’m sticking to a lot of classics, but attempting to do something new or fun with each recipe. A few I’ve locked:
Fresh take on gingerbread — I’ve done the stamped + glazed version linked below for several years now. I’m going to do something gingerbread house inspired this year with isomalted windows instead!
Fresh take on sugar — I typically do marbled or swirled color experiments, but I think I’m going to use Lauren Dozier’s new “quilted” technique (shown below) this year.
Peppermint mochas — I made these last year and WOW been dreaming of eating them ever since.
Cucidatti?? — My friend Caroline sent me a TikTok (shown below) of a big family making this classic fig-stuffed Italian cookie in some of the wildest cookie shapes I’ve ever seen. I’m thinking these could be a fun wildcard since I’ve never made or eaten them!
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The rest will stay a secret, mainly because I’m still deciding between a lot of potentials! 🤭 I’m tempted to rethink everything after stumbling upon The Deeper Living’s cookie recipe repository last night. I want to make everything?? 🤔
Sourcing ingredients + equipment + packaging
With a better idea of what I’m baking, I’m using this week to source specialty ingredients and equipment I might need as well as the packaging I’ll be using for my boxes!
I also start to keep an eye out for sales on the big stuff: flour, sugar, and BUTTER (30% of my total cookie box cost last year was for butter).
Ingredients math!
To better understand general amounts of ingredients to source, I finalize a few numbers:
How many of each cookie do I want in each box? (For tiny cookies, I usually include 3-4. For larger, typically 2)
How many total boxes am I making? (roughly)
After I decide on those, I move on to the following for each recipe:
(# of cookies per box) x (# of boxes) = Total # of cookies I need for that recipe.
Compare Total # of cookies to the recipes’ estimated yield to understand how many batches I need.
🚨 If this math comes out to 2.3 batches, I usually round up to 3 batches. This keeps the math simple and this gives me some wiggle room in case some of the individual cookies come out weird or uggo (I’ll just eat those myself)
Paste a list of the ingredients (multiplied for # of batches) into a running shopping list.
👩🏼💻 Once that list is complete, usually I take out the redundancies manually (“looks like I need 30 sticks of butter in total across recipes”). This year I’m using Chat GPT to handle this because it’s annoying 💀. So far the results seem reliable when I just paste in all of the ingredients lists in and ask Chat GPT to “combine similar ingredients into one cohesive shopping list”
Foundational ingredients
I can confidently say we’ve reached “the holidays” which means grocery stores often start putting together baking displays and running big surprise sales. I’m keeping an eye out for sales on butter, flour, sugars and when I see them I’m stocking up!
Specialty ingredients
Things like unique food colorings, sprinkles, fancy jams, niche flours are so fun to bake with, but can also ramp up costs quickly.
Be open to swaps! For example, last year I baked Blood Orange Poppy Seed Window cookies. I mainly picked the recipe because I liked the way the windows looked, not because of the “Blood Orange” flavor. The cheapest Blood Orange marmalade near me was like $15, so I just switched to normal Orange marmalade ($5) and it was perfectly tasty.
That being said, treat yourself to a trip to some local bakeshops / specialty kitchen stores! It’s fun and maybe you want to splurge!
Specialty equipment
I try to avoid buying new baking equipment I will likely only use around the holidays. If a recipe calls for unique cookie cutters or pans, I start by asking on my neighborhood’s Facebook Buy Nothing page if I can borrow. I also check the larger thrift stores near me and usually have luck!
Overall, I’ve found it super helpful to get these things worked out now, a few weeks in advance of baking weekend on Dec 1.
📦 Sourcing packaging
Recycled materials
The first year I did cookie boxes, I used a variety of recycled containers and boxes from around our house. I cut off their top flaps for a house-no-roof situation. I also wrapped them each in holiday wrapping paper which was time intensive, but made them look more appealing.
Tins + boxes
The past few years I bought consistently sized boxes, with see-through windows on top (something like this). These have worked okay, but I’m going to keep an eye out for affordable tins because the cardboard boxes felt pretty flimsy in transport (probably at places like Michaels and Dollar Tree).
Ehhhh who needs a box
Wrap your cookies in butcher paper + twine
Thrift a pile of vintage plates
Use your own plates + tupperware (an excuse to see your friends again sometime soon to get these back)
Inside-the-box materials
When arranging your boxes you’ll quickly realize the cookies need some lift off of the flat base of your box (if you choose to use boxes). Ideas for that:
I typically place cookies on top of a slightly flattened muffin liners within my box
One year I used leftover tissue paper from my bday at the base of my boxes
Consider using physical dividers in your boxes (perhaps with cardboard scraps from cardboard/tissue/shoe boxes)
Use butcher’s twine to tie together cute little stacks of cookies
Testing
Is your family getting together this week to eat turkey? Consider using this as an opportunity to test one of your cookie box recipes, especially any of those that involves a technique new-to-you or another element that feels tricky. ✨
Generally I don’t overdo the “testing” though. This year I probably won’t test anything at all, I don’t have time! We’re gonna wing it.
Recipes
Enjoy this list of my tried & true favorite cookie recipes. I’ve added a few notes on how I’ve adapted when I’ve made these as relevant.
The Shaker Cookie / Constellation inspiration
Brown butter chocolate chip cookies / J. Kenji López-Alt
In recent years this has been my favorite chocolate chip cookie!Brown butter Snickerdoodles / Stephanie’s Sweet Treats
Swirled sugar cookies / The Slow Roasted Italian (lol)
This is my base sugar cookie recipe. I love this swirled variation, but I often make them marbled using the technique on the next bullet or even frosted. They’re lovely!Cinnamon sugar palmiers / Two of a kind
This recipe calls for making your own dough, but you could make these with store-bought puff pastry or pie dough to make them super quick! I’ve done this and they’re still delicious.Dirty chai earthquake cookies / Amateur gourmet
I used finely ground coffee beans for this.Brown butter miso white chocolate / Cooking with cocktail rings
Salted chocolate chip shortbread / Alison Roman
You get to make your own cookie dough log with these, which is fun if you haven’t before!Soft glazed gingerbread / View from Great Island
I usually use cookie stamps to print patterns into these before glazing, it’s a really nice effect visually!Pecan Tassies / Trisha Yearwood
You need a mini muffin pan for these, I found mine at Goodwill!Peppermint mocha cookies / Sally’s Baking
Please consider these. They’re my favorite cookie to eatOreo balls / Two Peas & their Pod
Cranberry lemon bars / Home-cooked harvest
(Okay, this is cookie adjacent, but they are so good)Skillet chocolate chip cookie / Bon Appetit (potential paywall)
Blood orange poppyseed window cookies / NYT (potential paywall)
You don’t have to use blood orange jam, last year I used blueberry and apricot.Ombre rainbow cookies / Bon Appetit (potential paywall)
Thumbprints with dulce de leche, nutella, or jam / NYT (potential paywall)
I specifically have made the hazelnut variation and they were so lovely
Recipe box combinations
If you’re still deciding which cookies to include in your boxes, here are a few ideas for boxes that feel balanced and cute to me (using the recipes linked above)!
3 cookie variation
Salted chocolate chip shortbread (chocolate, round, classic)
Ombre cookies (fruity, square, colorful, cookie-adjacent)
Hazelnut thumbprints (Nostalgic, nutty)
4 cookie variation
Pecan tassies (Nutty, cookie-adjacent)
Glazed gingerbread (Classic, lots of potential for fun shapes)
Sugar cookies variation (perhaps consider the marbled technique linked above, or the swirls for something fun!)
Some form of chocolate chip (skillet cookie, shortbreads, classic cookies)
5 cookie variation
Peppermint brownie cookies (chocolate, round)
Chai earthquakes (spicy, round)
Palmiers (unique shape, cookie adjacent, cinnamon-y)
Oreo balls (classic, orbs)
Marbled sugar cookies cut into squares (basic, colorful, unique shape)
I know this one was a lot! Next week I’ll mainly talk about how to schedule out your baking to keep stress levels low.
🍪🍪🍪
HJ