Another Successful Cookie Sale

I think I've finally recovered from our cookie sale.  It really was a lot of work, but once again, we had a very successful year!!  We made $266.50 from our little 50 cent cookie sale.  What was really amazing is that we were almost completely sold out before the 11 am Mass.  The selection was looking so sad by that time, we didn't even have the sale announced at the Mass.  We sold out!!

It started on the Sunday before, I made all the dough for the cookies. We were so blessed this year to be able to use the parish kitchen to bake the cookies.  On Monday morning, 4 of us got together.  It took us less than 2 hours to bake over 200 cookies.  The past 2 years, it would take an entire day to make the cookies in my oven.  Look at this beauty!!! We packaged them all and put them in the freezer.  It was nice to be able to put them in the church freezer instead of worrying about having room in mine.

On Friday, I made 100 chocolate covered pretzels, 5 batches of Rice Krispy Treats and 8 batches of frosting.  My kids kept letting me know that if I should happen to break any of the pretzels, they would be more than happy to eat them for me.  Such generous kids!

Saturday morning, we met at the church to decorate all of those delicious cookies.  This is a huge job.  I learned a very valuable lesson this year.  We didn't have as many moms to help this year and we were lacking one very important job, someone to really supervise the girls.  While the moms were frosting, the girls were putting sprinkles on the cookies.  When I say putting on the sprinkles, I should be saying DUMPING on the sprinkles.  Wow, did we go through a lot of sprinkles.  A whole lot more than in the past couple years.  It made for huge mess to clean up.  This doesn't even come close to the mess that was made.  So next year, one mom will just sit with the girls to keep an eye on things and there will be lots of plates for the girls to sprinkle over!!  Packaging all the cookies is what takes us the longest.  I still think the pretty packaging helps sell all those cookies!!

Next year we need to double Mary's famous chocolate chip cookies and add at least a couple more batches of sugar cookies. 

Thank you Lord for our very generous parish!

Getting Ready for the Bake Sale

Time to get the prep work done for our bake sale.  There is a lot of work that goes into those 50 cent cookies.  I sent out the list of ingredients we need for the sugar cookies and frosting.  I wanted to get it written down so that next year I don't need to calculate it out again.  Considering we basically sold out last year, I added an extra batch. This ingredient list is for 7 batches of cookies using this recipe.

This is the list I sent out to all the moms.  I tried to divide it so that it was basically even.  The ladies filled the list up very quickly which I really appreciate. 

2 lbs butter -

2 lbs butter -

2 lbs butter -

2 lbs butter -

2 Dozen Eggs -

2 – 5 lbs bags Flour -

2 -  4 lb bags Powder Sugar (confectioners' sugar) - 

5 Cups Solid Vegetable Shortening  -

10 lb bag of sugar -

4 containers of sprinkles and 5 lb bag of flour 

I've started making all the prayers that we attach to each cookie.  Since we made a little over $200 last year, I need to cut out at least 450 hearts.  My Silhouette will be humming quite a bit over the next week.  

I will make the dough the day before and then a few of us will be meeting in the social hall kitchen to do the baking.  I can't wait to test out the ovens.  It should save us at least a few hours of work.  I bought a couple more heart cookie cutters so that we will be able to crank those cookies out.  Then we will freeze them until the weekend and then the decorating will being.

Hopefully having the list will help take away some stress next year.  I love our cookie sale and am excited to see it all come together.

Cookie Sale

Well what an exhausting weekend!!  Started off on Friday making 85 chocolate covered pretzels, 2 batches of rice krispie treats and 4 batches of frosting.  I really wasn't sure how many batches of frosting to make.  Good rule of thumb is one batch for every batch of cookies.  This would make sense, but my brain just wasn't getting it.  We ran out when we were frosting on Saturday and I had to run home to make more.  Luckily I live less than 10 minutes from the church so it was quick.

On Saturday, the Little Flowers got together to frost our 200 sugar cookies and set up the table.  All the girls and their moms showed up to help.  It made the work so much easier.  We set up one set of tables for the moms to do the frosting.  The girls were at another set to frost and then another table for some moms to put them in bags with ribbons and prayers.  While the girls did so well, they did get a little bored after a while. That was certainly a lot of cookies.

We sold the cookies after Mass on Saturday evening and then the 2 Masses on Sunday.  God was truly with us.  We made more money than we had in cookies!!!  People were so generous and bought up almost all the cookies.  We only had about 16 treats left in the end.  My heart is just bursting with joy.

I had been so stressed and I know that Satan was tearing at me, trying to make me doubt myself.  I stuck with it though and all the hard work was so worth it.  It wasn't all about the money either.  With this being the first year that the Little Flowers was open to the parish, it was nice for the girls to get some visibility.  I loved seeing our banner hanging up.   I also loved  the opportunity for us to share God's love through the simple prayers attached to each cookies.   One other thing that was important to me was to provide a fundraiser that everyone was able to participate in.  Some fundraisers are so expensive that even if a person wanted to help, they might not be able to afford to.  With a 50 cent cookie sale, I think most everyone can afford to buy one cookie.  Don't get me wrong.  I know that 50 cents might be a lot to a little old lady who is on a fixed income, but I also know she goes home feeling good being able to help out a bunch of little girls.

I am off to take notes for next year and more importantly relax for the rest of the evening!!!

 

Oops, one of the leftovers.  Smudge is compliment of a little one.

Let the Baking Begin!!!

 
Oh boy!!  What was I thinking?  We are doing a bake sale to raise some money for our Little Flowers group and I decided the moms would make cut out sugar cookies and then the girls could do the frosting.  I thought perhaps 150 cookies sounded good and then we could also sell some chocolate covered pretzels.

I made the dough up the day before we were to do our baking.  This is the recipe that I used and I made 6 batches.  Luckily there were 5 of us who were able to get together.  It was nice to have time just for the moms as it gave us all a chance to get to know each other a little better.  We all took turns rolling out the dough and 6 hours later had 200 heart shaped cookies!!

A funny thought came to me after everyone had left my house.  We have a wonderful kitchen at the church with a couple of big ovens.  We probably could have cut off a couple of hours if we had made them there.  Oh well, it was a nice day, but certainly something to remember for next year.

Our bake sale is next weekend.  Can't wait to see how the cookies turn out!!