Cookies and healthy

When I recently started to bake cookies for selling and told people about it, a lot of times I got the question what ingredients I'm using. Actually, "why do I use white flour? Or sugar? It's not healthy."

I know. I also try to eat more grains, less "whites" (sugar/flour/rice), no trans, more water, no soft drinks, more green leaves. And so on.

I started to transform my cookie recipes and use whole wheat flour, brown or demerara sugar, oil as shortening. Anything I could think of. I searched the web for alternatives and asked a nutritionist. Hey, I want people to enjoy my cookies. Not to shun them.

Well, it's just not the same. Not the texture nor the flavor. It's a cookie. It's good. But as healthy as one makes a cookie it's still a cookie, not an apple or a carrot*.

So I've decided. I'm going to follow the original recipes to get the traditional cookies. Eat two (instead of ten) and ENJOY them! And then eat an apple instead of the other eight...



*BTW, I also bake muffins filled with apples and carrots and nuts and date honey and other healthy things :-)

How much?

Friday's bread and cookie selling went quite well, thank you for asking ;-)
(Of course the wine too!)

Though I have a dilemma. How much bread to bake? The first time, about a month and some ago, I did a nice amount that I thought would sell. Two different kinds of rye breads and a bunch of cookies. I was left with a little more than half the amount of the breads and about a third of the cookies. Luckily there was a holiday coming up so I could hand out the leftovers to near and dear as presents.

This time I thought that I'd bake a little less, so I made about half the amounts. The same two kinds of rye bread and the bunch of cookies. I sold out the bread in no time and had to turn guests down, with promisses that I'll bake bread every other week regardless of wine events. The cookies hardly sold at all. (Go figure! Do people eat less sweets in the summer?)

So now I'm going to bake breads about every other week and hopefully I'll do the right amount.

I bake

As long as I can remember I've been baking.

One of my earliest memories, I must have been a toddler, is of taking out all the bowls from a kitchen cupboard, sitting on the floor with a wooden spoon in my hand - "baking".

At six I found some recipes with drawings as explanations. I made my first simple jam cookies then.

In 9th grade we were supposed to try a profession for two weeks. We could choose, almost, anything we wanted. For two weeks I got up at 4:30* am every day, took the subway into town, and worked at a bakery. Heaven!

During all my teenage years, I remember my father saying, about once a month, "you bake, I do dishes". We filled the freezer with a months supply of coffee bread.

So how come I never thought of going into that profession? Well, I did think it. But a 'smart girl' like me should go to the university. Right? Baking can still be a nice hobby. Right?

And I've continued to bake, as a hobby, including fantasy birthday cakes to the kids, volunteering every time there needed to be a cake in kindergarten and school.

Now I think it's time that I bake for a broader market. Would you like to taste? See my events calendar in the margin or drop me a line, and we'll figure out how to meet.



*As a minor, I wasn't allowed to start working before 6 am. Otherwise I would probably have been at the bakery at that hour.

First Fair*

I did it!
Signed up for a fair :-)

Friday July 25th, between 9:00-15:00, you can come and see (and purchase) my products at the Hadar Mall in Talpiyot, Jerusalem.

There will be:
- Flowers in all kind of forms
- Bags
- Hats
- and a few more things
(Hope to put some pics on the blog before then.)

*Well, my first 'professional'. I don't count the small one at the local school to rais money for the 6th graders.

Yarn yarn yarn

Yarn everywhere.

I have just spent some 4 hours sorting and organizing (and writing down) all yarns I have.

Thick yarn, thin yarn, soft yarn, "bubbly" yarn, "fancy" yarn, 7 different shades of any colour, variegated colours, yarns with metal threads in them, acrylic yarns, mohair yarns, cotton yarns, cotton threads (3 different thicknesses), knitting yarns, crochet yarns, thin packing rope (made a bag out of that), ... Phuh!

Now it's all neatly placed in plastic see-through boxes, colour coded, and crochet yarns separate :-)

Then I find another box of left-over yarns I got from my mother...

Crochet a Cake*

Two favorite hobbies: Crocheting and baking

When you open a new business you're not supposed to 'distract' yourself in too many directions. Pick one.

Says who?


* In Hebrew "Soreget Ugiyot" (= knitting cookies), given to me by Ester Halevy.

Daring

I'm daring a lot lately.

Opening workshops AND ADVERTISING THEM
Baking cookies for A's scout happening AND PUTTING MY BUSINESS CARD ON THEM
Reducing my employment to 60% AND PUTTING MY FAITH THAT I'LL EARN THE REST THROUGH MY CRAFTS
Starting a blog AND PUBLISHING IT

Daring D - That's me!