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Cookies to bake for a funeral?


Kajikit

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One of our church members passed away and I offered to bake cookies and brownies for the funeral... we're expecting about 150 people and that's a LOT of people to bake for! Various friends are bringing sandwiches etc. I'm going to make sugar cookies, oatmeal cookies, my deluxe chocolate brownies... and I need a few more cookies or slices. Any ideas? And how many cookies do you think I need to bake for 150 people?

Edited by Kajikit (log)
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One of our church members passed away and I offered to bake cookies and brownies for the funeral... we're expecting about 150 people and that's a LOT of people to bake for! Various friends are bringing sandwiches etc. I'm going to make sugar cookies, oatmeal cookies, my deluxe chocolate brownies... and I need a few more cookies or slices. Any ideas? And how many cookies do you think I need to bake for 150 people?

My current favorite is Viennese Crescents. Very short. I make them with ground pecans instead of ground almonds. Easy to make, yummy to snitch cookie dough. People LOVE them! My recipe comes from an old Fanny Farmer cookbook but I expect you could find the recipe anywhere pretty much.

Darienne

 

learn, learn, learn...

 

We live in hope. 

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I would say 2 1/2 cookies per person. So 400 total cookies if they are the normal size cookies. I wouldn't stress about doing too many varieties though. You seem to have a pretty good balance of chocolate, plain, & "healthy" with the three varieties you listed. I would plan on 200 brownies, 100 sugar, and 100 oatmeal since most people are going to go straight for the chocolate in my experience. If you can, decorate your platters with some fresh berries for color and that will even it out for those who may just want a little something sweet but not a cookie. You could also go the route of decorating the platters with some caramels or similar small candies for the same purpose.

I hope it goes well for you.

--Michelle

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Thanks Michelle! I bore easily... I HATE making multiple batches of the same thing, which is why I thought I'd make three or four different kinds of cookie. And that way I get to try a new recipe or two - cookies are something that it's very hard to screw up enough to make them inedible!

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I would say 2 1/2 cookies per person. So 400 total cookies if they are the normal size cookies.  I wouldn't stress about doing too many varieties though. You seem to have a pretty good balance of chocolate, plain, & "healthy" with the three varieties you listed. I would plan on 200 brownies, 100 sugar, and 100 oatmeal since most people are going to go straight for the chocolate in my experience. If you can, decorate your platters with some fresh berries for color and that will even it out for those who may just want a little something sweet but not a cookie. You could also go the route of decorating the platters with some caramels or similar small candies for the same purpose.

I hope it goes well for you.

--Michelle

2 to 3 cookies per person sounds reasonable.

I like the fruit garnish idea - small bunchlets of grapes work well as they are easy to pick up and eat.

How about classic peanut butter cookies? You could top some with chocolate stars or hershey kisses.

The human touch of baking for the grieving is more appreciated than you may realize.

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Cinnamon Cookies, Hazelnut Crisps, Chocolate Chip, Chocolate Wafers, Homemade Graham Crackers, Jam Thumbprints, Espresso-Chocolate Shortbread, Lemon Cookies...

There's nothing better than a good friend, except a good friend with CHOCOLATE.
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I wonder if someone at the Church knows a member of the family well enough to ask if there are any family favourites?

If someone were to bake cookies for my mother's funeral, there should be Snickerdoodles.

I like the idea of pound cake and a bowl of fruit to be spooned over.

“Don't kid yourself, Jimmy. If a cow ever got the chance, he'd eat you and everyone you care about!”
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that way I get to try a new recipe or two

For an occasion like this I'd want comfort food, tried and true recipes--out of my own repetoire, I'd want brownies, oatmeal raisin, spritz, and nutmeg/walnut icebox cookies, all family favorites when we were growing up, and save the rosemary walnut or lemon-anise-pepper cookies for another day.

Icebox cookiesOatmeal Raisin

Spritz

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Blondies.

So delicious, so easy to make, and so familiar. Everyone loves them.

I use macadamia nuts instead of cashews.

Edited by fooey (log)

Fooey's Flickr Food Fotography

Brünnhilde, so help me, if you don't get out of the oven and empty the dishwasher, you won't be allowed anywhere near the table when we're flambeéing the Cherries Jubilee.

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fwiw, whenever I am cooking for a large group of people, I avoid using nuts in anything...

but sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds make a great sub.

Mind you, if peanut butter cookies were a family favorite, then go for it. Just put a label on the plate.

My vote would be for large batches of three or four varieties. Allow 2-3 cookies (1 ounce) per person, max. Especially if there are other food items.

Karen Dar Woon

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fwiw, whenever I am cooking for a large group of people, I avoid using nuts in anything.
I never do, but only because I know people with nut allergies and they tell me they take responsibility for themselves, what they eat. They don't expect others to cook or bake around them.

If they think something has nuts, they won't it eat. If they want to eat it, but aren't sure, they'll ask about it or avoid it altogether.

Nut allergies exist, but are not nearly as prevalent as people think they are. Those who suffer from them learn to avoid foods where ingredients are ambiguous.

Edited by fooey (log)

Fooey's Flickr Food Fotography

Brünnhilde, so help me, if you don't get out of the oven and empty the dishwasher, you won't be allowed anywhere near the table when we're flambeéing the Cherries Jubilee.

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Lemon Squares.

Perfect for any occasion.

I don't understand why rappers have to hunch over while they stomp around the stage hollering.  It hurts my back to watch them. On the other hand, I've been thinking that perhaps I should start a rap group here at the Old Folks' Home.  Most of us already walk like that.

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I was going to do lemon bars but alas I forgot to buy lemons when I went to the grocery store for supplies this morning! So they're out because I don't have time to go back and my budget's been spent. I'm going to do chocolate brownies and blondies with butterscotch chips/pecans... an oaty fruit slice and a sugar-free slice. That'll take care of the slices. Then I'll do some sugar-free sugar cookies, regular sugar cookies, oatmeal cookies, and the peanut-butter cookies.

I'll put the sugar-free stuff into a nice basket by itself (there are a few diabetic church members and in a crowd that big there'll be at least a few people who can't/won't eat sugar...), the slices and brownies can stay in their foil trays, and the regular cookies will be heaped up in a nice big tub.

Now to start baking...

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This is such a lovely idea and I'm sure it will be really appreciated. Please remember that the more options you give people, the more they will eat. You may want to increase your output a bit.

Just a thought.

E

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Martha Stewart Kitchen Sink cookies.  Just made them for my BIL's funeral( :sad: ) and everyone loved them.  THe recipe makes a lot too!!

Her cookie recipes just rock. I don't care how much !@#$% people give her, she makes fantastic cookies and cupcakes and all variety of baked goods.

Another one of her cookies, that just blows the roof off of every cookie I've ever eaten, is her Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies [p. 67, Martha Stewart's Cookies, ISBN 978-0307394545].

Probably not a great idea for a funeral, but...

Fooey's Flickr Food Fotography

Brünnhilde, so help me, if you don't get out of the oven and empty the dishwasher, you won't be allowed anywhere near the table when we're flambeéing the Cherries Jubilee.

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The first three batches of cookies are done last night. I made them all petite/bitesized because I figure it's better to have three bite-sized cookies each than to get one monster...

I made basic sugar cookies first ( the classic recipe from Allrecipes.com) and put chocolate eggs on half and papaya chunks on half just to look pretty... That made approx 80.

Then I made a batch of spice cookies that's my mother's recipe. That recipe made 90 but we ate a few last night!

And lastly I made snickerdoodles. I've never done them before but I figured they're a 'classic' cookie and I couldn't really go wrong. That recipe didn't make so many. There are about 60 of them, and I may make a second batch because they're delicious!

As the cookies cooled I bagged them up in ziplock bags and stood them in the cookie tub to give me an idea of how much it'll hold. From the looks of it there's room for two more batches of cookie. Plus I'll do a batch of sugar-free cookies separately for the diabetics.

I'm not sure about the peanut butter cookies now... I'm dithering! I THINK they'd be okay but I'm not sure that it would be a good idea to mix peanuts in with all the rest of the cookies just in case there's somebody there who's allergic. So I might skip them and make something different. (those 'kitchen sink' cookies look just like my regular oatmeal cookies except I don't use coconut! I throw whatever fruit/nuts/chocolate I have handy into the mix, and the more the better...)

Edited by Kajikit (log)
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I'm not sure about the peanut butter cookies now... I'm dithering! I THINK they'd be okay but I'm not sure that it would be a good idea to mix peanuts in with all the rest of the cookies just in case there's somebody there who's allergic. So I might skip them and make something different. (those 'kitchen sink' cookies look just like my regular oatmeal cookies except I don't use coconut! I throw whatever fruit/nuts/chocolate I have handy into the mix, and the more the better...)

Congratulations on such a good and generous job well done.

As long as you are dithering, my vote is for NO peanut cookies, period. End of all potential problems. :smile:

Darienne

 

learn, learn, learn...

 

We live in hope. 

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And I'm done! Well, almost... the blondies are in the oven and there's a tray of marbled brownies still to bake because I had some batter left over and I mixed it together. But I'm done making mess. I need to sit down and make a list of how many ingredients I used for future reference. I've never baked that much at one time before! I was so busy cooking that I didn't take any photos for my blog, but I'll take some in the morning when I pack the stuff up prettily and get it ready to go.

In the end I made the three batches of cookies yesterday, and today I made oatmeal cookies, sugar-free sugar cookies (which aren't anything to write home about but they're not horrible and maybe someone will appreciate the thought!), a sugar-free apple slice which is much much nicer, regular chocolate brownies, mocha brownies with pecans, butterscotch blondies, marbled brownies with butterscotch AND chocolate chips, and lastly an invention of my own because I couldn't find a recipe - coconut blondies, ie. vanilla mix with a layer of coconut/condensed milk in the middle, sprinkled with some more coconut on top just so people know what they're getting.

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I am working my way through many of the recipes in Martha Stewart's Cookies and agree wholeheartedly that they are great. No need to wonder if it'll be good - it will!! I'm gonna start telling people to just buy that book when they ask for my recipes. I love that there's pictures of all too. Just to browse through when wanting inspiration.

Cheese - milk's leap toward immortality. Clifton Fadiman

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I'm sending my sister to kidnap the brownies. Lock your door. She's in Key West. Edited by fooey (log)

Fooey's Flickr Food Fotography

Brünnhilde, so help me, if you don't get out of the oven and empty the dishwasher, you won't be allowed anywhere near the table when we're flambeéing the Cherries Jubilee.

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