This year Renton Technical College baking program students made 1,440 cookies for the Seattle Milk Fund’s CookieFest 2012.
The charity event at the Macy’s downtown Seattle store last Saturday raised money for the organization’s efforts to increase economic stability for families and community through childcare and education grants. More than 20 Seattle bakeries and culinary schools participated.
Renton Technical College supplied cookie teddy bears with hats, snowflakes, stars, Christmas trees, gingerbread, Santas, Snowmen and dreidels. Perhaps most treasured were the cookies that came from students’ family recipes and have been passed down for generations.
Student Jill Bright made her aunt and uncle’s recipe for Peanut Butter Blossoms. Her relatives have made the peanut butter cookies with chocolate kisses for more than 20 years.
“So, I feel really blessed that they shared it with me,” said Bright.
Kirsten Yeager made her Aunt Dorothy’s Goo-Goos, rectangular squares of butterscotch, peanut butter and chocolate with marshmallows and unsalted peanuts.
“It’s been in our family for 40 years and we do it every holiday season,” Yeager said.
RTC Bakery Instructor Robert Holland likes the family tradition component of their project this year for CookieFest 2012.
“Some people make them with their parents or grandparents, so to carry on that tradition is pretty nice, I think,” said Holland.
He’s new to the school this year and previously worked for 16 years at Grand Central Bakery as the production manager. There they went through 30,000 pounds or 15 tons of flour a week to make bread. At RTC they use just 100 pounds of flour a week.
Cookie-making is part of RTC baking students curriculum to teach them basic principles of accuracy and technique but also initiative, Holland said.
The students aren’t graded on their holiday cookies, but more on who’s taking the initiative to help finish the 1,440 needed for CookieFest 2012.
Holland had the students make a test batch of their family recipes and then selected the best recipes from there.
“It just couldn’t be anything, but if it was steeped in holiday or family tradition, I might have looked past taste a little bit, just because it’s tradition,” he said.
There are some unusual cookie facts out there, Holland said.
Some German cookies people make two to three months in advance because they get better with age, he said.
There are 12 students in RTC’s baking program currently and more rotate into the program with every quarter.
PEANUT BUTTER BLOSSOMS
• 48 Hershey’s Kisses Brand Milk Chocolates
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 3/4 cup Reese’s Creamy Peanut Butter
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• Additional granulated sugar
Directions
1. Heat oven to 375°F. Remove wrappers from chocolates.
2. Beat shortening and peanut butter in large bowl until well blended. Add 1/3 cup granulated sugar and brown sugar; beat until fluffy. Add egg, milk and vanilla; beat well. Stir together flour, baking soda and salt; gradually beat into peanut butter mixture.
3. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Roll in granulated sugar; place on ungreased cookie sheet.
4. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Immediately press a chocolate into center of each cookie; cookie will crack around edges. Remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. Cool completely.
Makes about 4 dozen cookies.
CHOCOLATE
PEPPERMINT
• 1 & 1/2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup Dutch-process cocoa (such as Hershey’s Special Dark)
• 1 & 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 stick (1/2 cup) salted butter, cut into chunks
• 1 & 1/4 cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon peppermint extract
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar for rolling
• Hershey’s Kisses
Directions
1. Line cookie sheets with parchment. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
3. With an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs and extracts, beating until combined and scraping down the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed.
4. Gradually, add the flour mixture, beating on low just until combined. The mixture will be very sticky.
5. Place the bowl in the refrigerator and chill for 30 minutes to 1 hour.
6. Use a teaspoon cookie scoop (or a spoon) to scoop generous teaspoons of dough onto the prepared cookie sheets. Place the powdered sugar on a plate.
7. Bake for 12 minutes at 350 degrees or until lightly brown.
