Trinity Christmas Treats 2014

A box of this year's Trinity Christmas Treats. Each box contains 45 treats.

After weeks and weeks of planning, preparation and work, this year's Trinity Christmas Treats are finally packed and ready to be delivered. The annual fundraiser is a project that takes a tremendous amount of energy but it's for a very good cause. All proceeds go to Trinity Episcopal Cathedral's Food Ministries which supports The Wednesday Community Meal.

I owe so much to all the wonderful volunteers who helped this year. Together we filled 100 boxes—That's 4,500 treats! Thank you Cheryl, Dave, Cindy, Mary, Terri, Martha, Leah, Nancy, Tom, Anne, Tiffany, Linda, and Madeline! I am grateful for your hard work, support and friendship.

Here are some pics from our busy week:

One of my first jobs was tackling the gingerbread snowflakes that grace the outside of the box.

After outline and flooding the cookies, I added piped details to every cookie.

After the royal icing dried, I packaged each snowflake in a cellophane bag.

Stacks of peppermint bark ready to be packaged.

I put my new baker's rack to good use cooling trays Dark Chocolate Espresso Almond Sea Salt Bark.

The delicious dark chocolate bark ready to be packaged.

Then it was time to make Russian Tea Cakes. Cheryl, Terri and Mary also helped by making doughs ahead of time so that we could spend one day in the church kitchen just focusing on the baking.

The baking team.

Finished cookies counted and placed in cupcake papers for the boxes.

Walnut Logs cooling after being dipped in dark chocolate and sprinkled with chopped walnuts.

Chocolate shortbread drizzled with white chocolate and sprinkled with crushed candy canes.

Martha and Cindy filling the boxes.

Madeline and Mary working together to add ruglach to the boxes.

The bottom layer clockwise from top left: Cranberry Chews, Maple Cinnamon Chip Cookies, Chocolate Peppermint Shortbread, Vanilla Shortbread, Ruglach, Ginger Molasses Cookies, Linzer Cookies and Russian Tea Cakes.

The top layer clockwise from top left: Peppermint Bark, Ginger Molasses Cookies, Brownie Biscotti, Walnut Logs, Cranberry Chews, Ruglach and Dark Chocolate Espresso Almond Sea Salt Bark.

Gingerbread Snowflake Weekend

Making the gingerbread snowflake cookies that will grace the outside of every single Trinity Christmas Cookie Box is a task that kind of eats up an entire weekend.

Every year, Cheryl, my dear friend and cookie cohort, and I consider making something else to decorate the boxes we sell to benefit Food Ministries at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral. But, we always go back to the gingerbread snowflakes because in the end, the elegant and simple design can't be beat.


Even so, making them is one huge task that always tests my patience and concentration skills.

I'm glad to have the task completed because now it's time to focus on the more than 4,000 other cookies that need to be baked to fill the boxes.

Saturday 10 a.m.: The dough is made, chilled and ready to be rolled.

Saturday 2 p.m.: The cookies are baked and ready for icing.

Saturday 6:30 p.m.: The cookies are outlined with piping consistency white icing.

Saturday Midnight: I'm feeling really tired. With just three cookies left to fill, I ran out of icing. No matter, it's time to go to bed.

Sunday 5 p.m.: The details have been piped and the snowflakes are done. They need to dry before packaging so it's time for a dinner break.

Sunday 8 p.m.: All 123 snowflakes are packaged but it's still not time to stop thinking about cookies. On Friday, I will work with Cheryl and a team of volunteers to bake the more than 4,000 cookies still needed to fill the boxes. In the meantime, Cheryl is hard at work making 48 rolls of shortbread doughs and I have a few things to do in peparation for the big baking session. Stay tuned...

Cookies, Cookies, Cookies x 1,000

As of this afternoon, the baking and assembling of the cookie boxes to benefit the Wednesday Community Meal at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral is officially over.

And now more than three thousand cookies later we are tired...but happy with the results and anxious to sell every one of them and raise some money for a great cause. The boxes cost $25.

The secret to being able to complete such a large task was organization and pre-making the dough before the big baking session on Friday. The most tender cookies come from chilled dough so there is no harm in making the dough early and letting it chill for a few days.

Just a few of the cookies we made.

Packed boxes ready to be sold.

We also decided to slice off most of our all- butter cookies instead of rolling the dough and using cutters. The slicing method is much more efficient. You just form a log with the dough and then slice off the cookies before baking.

And, thanks to the advice of Cheryl who is the most organized baking partner in the world, we simplified things by making large batches of doughs and changing them to get different kinds of cookies.

 For example, the vanilla shortbread recipe was used to make three different cookies.

The first way was to coat the edges with egg white and roll it in sugar for a pretty edge.

The second way was to add dried cranberries to the dough.

And, the third way was to decorate the tops of the baked cookies with dark chocolate and crushed candy cane.

This plan was so smart and made our large task manageable.

Here are few snapshots from our busy week:

My sweet niece Maya helped me pack my car for the big baking session at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral.

Just a few more cookies.

Anne cutting Rugelach.

Martha setting out the boxes for packing.

The bottom layer of cookies in the boxes. Clockwise from top left: Russian Teacakes, Cranberry Noels, Magic Cookie Bars, Ginger Crisps, Dark Chocolate Shortbread with White Chocolate, Vanilla Shortbread with Dark Chocolate and Candy Cane, Walnut and Chocolate Logs and Rugelach.

The top layer: Ginger Crisps, Linzer Cookies, Sugar Cookies, Vanilla Shortbread and Cranberry Noels.

Leah tying the decorated gingerbread snowflakes on the boxes.

Boxes that will be sold tomorrow. In the end we made 91 boxes and each one has three dozen cookies!

More Cookies

Yesterday I baked and decorated just under 300 sugar cookies for our cookie boxes to benefit the Wednesday Community Meal. 

Because I needed to make so many, I chose a simple design that came together fast.

I also used a plain round cookie cutter. When you need to work in bulk there's no time for fussy cutters. You want clean edged and open cutters that allow you to cut the dough with one press and then pop it right out.

Another tip is that a circle is easier to outline and fill with royal icing than a square. With squares you have to stress more about straight lines and easing the icing into 90-degree corners.

I also didn't want to wait for the basecoat of icing to dry before adding detail so I used the wet on wet method. That way I only had to wait once for the cookies to dry.

The plain open cutter that I used.

After flooding, add red lines around the cookie.

Use a skewer to draw through the lines starting on the outside and working towards the center.