21.12.2009

two weeks ago, my brother, roddy called me, to ask if i would like to contribute cookies for his BAG2SCHOOL project.

the purpose of the BAG2SCHOOL project is to raise fund for the children who are infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. and the fund collected will be used to buy new school materials including new school uniforms, school bags, books and stationery.

if i were to agree i have to bake 100 cookies, they will be part of the items to be included in the aprreciation bags (they have chocolates, Starbucks voucher, Body Shop Perfume, bookmark, KASIH brochure, candies and the bag itself) that will be given to the donors who donated for the project. roddy suggested to bake gingersnaps to have the christmas feel.


considering that my little old orange oven can only hold 2 baking trays and at least 9 cookies (with the size that he wanted) per tray. that means that i can only bake 18 cookies each round. and to have 100 cookies, i need to bake for at least 6 rounds. while each round i need around 30mins time, so for 6 rounds, i need to have 3 hours.


i have a day to give him the answer. i didnt say YES to it, neither did i say NO. but seems that it's a YES because i did all the preparation. i bought butter, flour, eggs and searched for the best recipe. hehe. we started our the baking project on thursday night, and luckily friday was a public holiday. these were the outcome. the followed the recipe that i have but the dough turned out to be too soft and not pliable..i have to add more flour to improve the texture of the dough.


when our first trial is done, i managed to bake only 33 cookies including the burnt ones. roddy was the quality control. the sound of breaking the cookies was perfect. but when it come to the taste, in my opinion, they were too fluory due to too much flour added. i wasnt happy with the products. it was already 1230pm that night, and i started to get nervous.


my baking book is just next to my pillow. i searched through and found out 'the recipe'. so the next morning (friday) i started early, just in case i fail again. i prepared 2 butters of dough and refrigerate them to firm. i started baking at 8pm and finished at around 1am. the total cookies i managed to bake were 150 pieces. oh ya, the size of my cookies had shrunk, so i have to put in 2 cookies per bag. roddy wanted to get 120 bags, so i have to have at least 240 cookies.


i have to continue for another 90 pieces of cookies on saturday. the project will start on sunday and i'm afraid that i couldnt make it in time. luckily ah meng and milia were at home to help. i finished baking all 240 pieces of gingersnaps at around 3pm. ah meng and milia helped with the icing and me as the designer..and of course roddy as the approver. hehe.


after 2days of baking, 2.5 hours of icing, and almost 1 hour of packing. everything is done at around 530pm. and they are ready to be given away.


i never knew that i'll be able to produce this many of cookies, with little experience and many failures that i had. hmm..praise God! =)