Headache Free Holiday Baking--Tip 3--Make a Map

In this post I outlined some of my tips and tricks for simplifying holiday baking. Today, I'm going to show how we applied tip 3:

Make a Map

In addition to having made and frozen some dough in advance, we decided to spread our baking out over an entire weekend. Our schedule looked something like this:

Saturday

Phase I

• Remove oatmeal chocolate chip cookie dough from freezer to let thaw
• Make sugar cookie dough, divide into saran-wrap logs and toss in refrigerator
• Make mint chocolate chip chocolate cookie dough

Phase II

• Bake mint chocolate chip chocolate cookies
• Bake oatmeal chocolate chip cookies
• Start load of dishes
• Make brownie mix, pour in pan, top with marshmallow fluff, swirl

Phase III

• Put brownies in oven
• Make and eat dinner
• Start load of dishes

Phase IV

• Run out to store for plates, tags, etc. (I recommend that you do this in advance!)

Phase V

• Make brownie mix and cream cheese topping for cheater cheesecake brownies
• Spoon into muffin tins
• Bake cheater cheese cake brownies
• Run load of dishes

Sunday
Phase I

• Pull sugar cookie dough out of the fridge, one log at a time. Roll out and place on baking sheets.
• Bake cookies as you continue to roll out dough (two people is a lifesaver here), set them out to cool as they come out of the oven
• Take frosting out of the fridge (another thing easy to do a few days in advance)
• Frost cookies, begining with the coolest cookies first.
• Decorate

Phase II

• Set out paper plates
• Plate cookies according to how many we have of each
• Place inside ziplock bags
• Write out tags, tape to bags
• Run a load of dishes

By the end of Sunday, we had all of our cookies made and frosted, the dishes done, had remembered to eat and still had our sanity intact. I call that quite successful. When making your game plan remember to factor in any other commitments and breaks. If your helper needs to leave early or join in late, schedule the more labor intensive things for when they will be there to help.