The Experiment: Week One

October 22, 2010

It's the end of week one of my experiment of selling my baked goods at a little stand in the front garden. Here's the tally for each day:

Monday: 2 pieces coffee cake
Tuesday: 3 pieces coffee cake
Wednesday: 5 pieces pumpkin cake
Thursday: 3 pieces pumpkin cake
Friday: 10 pieces rasberry walnut bars and chocolate chip cookies!
**Update: 2 more sold today - 12 total on Friday!



That's right, I sold 10 packets of goodies today! I made these great linzer torte bars, but called them raspberry walnut bars so my customers might have a clue what they were. This morning I even put out little samples of the raspberry walnut bars and they're all gone!

I was a little skeptical of the linzer torte bar recipe when I was making it and even once it came out of the oven. The recipe makes very thin bars, about a half inch thick, and with so few ingredients I wasn't sure if they would be that impressive. But they're just fantastic. They are buttery and nutty, a bit chewy and a little crispy. Overall verdict: very yum.

For the chocolate chip cookies, I made the old Boyle (probably Foley) standby recipe. I've been baking them (ad nauseum) since I got to Dublin and they are always a huge hit. Chocolate chip cookies are a very American treat and such a novelty over here. These cookies bake really chewy in our fan oven in Dublin, whereas they're crispier when baked in a traditional American coil oven.

Here's the famous recipe:

1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/4 cups flour
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips or chunks

Mix butter and both sugars until combined - no streaks of butter. I usually do this by hand, but you could use a mixer. Stir in the eggs until the batter gets a bit lighter in colour. Stir in baking soda, salt and vanilla. Add in 2 cups of flour; I usually use just over 2 cups, but not quite 2 1/4 cups. Stir in the chocolate chips or chunks, and drop onto tin foil lined cookie sheets. I started using tin foil on the cookie sheets because I didn't want to wash the sheets each time (was making a lot of cookies there for a while!) but the trick makes the cookies more chewy, less crispy. I'm sure a silpat would work the same way.

Bake at 350 for 12 minutes or so until they're just golden brown.

Next week is a midterm break for the school at the end of our street, so I'll be taking a week off from my morning stand. But I'll be using the week to work on my studio and to work up a few marketing pieces for my new stand.

Today, Michael and his brothers are emptying out our back shed so I can use it as an art studio. Check back next week for photos of the work in progress!