I was busy the whole afternoon yesterday (which is why no post yesterday), I was caught up in a mini baking mission to bake some surprise sweet goodies for my ex-colleagues. On top of that, 2 of hubby's close friends came over for lunch cum playdate with Ben (one of hubby's friend brought along her 17 months old daughter). From morning, I started off roasting the chicken wings which I marinated the night before and hubby went out to buy some cold cuts and sausages to make spaghetti for lunch.
About 1pm+, I accompanied Ben with hubby's friend and her daughter and spend some playtime with them in Ben's playroom. Around 2pm+, Ben looked tired and it was past his naptime already. So I nursed him to sleep while hubby's friend took her daughter downstair and play with the other friend who just arrived.
I then proceeded to start baking the Shortbread Shapes cookies (total 3 batches) while Ben took his nap and hubby and friends had their lunch. I had earlier prepared the ingredients in 3 batches to save some time. By the time I finished everything (I even bake some Orange Poppy Seed mini muffins again) it was 5pm+.
After the cookies and muffins have cooled down, I got ready the small plastic bags with my plastic bag sealer and started off the packaging exercise. In total, I prepared for 13 people and all 13 will get their bag of cookies (I think I put about 14-15 pieces into each bag).
But not all get the additional mini muffins cos my SIL and her daughter came over for dinner at our place and had some, and I also gave some to hubby's friend to take home as well. So, ended up about 6 or 7 close ex-colleagues only get to try the extra mini muffins in their goodie bag.
All in all, it was a tiring but rewarding experience. I'm pretty proud to achieve all this baking within 3 hours time. I hope to be able to practise more and perhaps find some way to reduce time wastage and probably need to think of easier and faster ways to do the cookies mould. That was the tiring part of all the tasks and also when I need to turn the baking tray 180degrees midway baking to ensure the air circulation are thorough and the cookies are baked nicely all over.
Some of my ex-colleagues have already emailed to thank me for the treats and I also gave some of them the links to my recipe posts. A couple even asked me to start taking orders for Chinese New Year cookies and doing this as a part-time business... hahahah... funny, funny... I told them it's not the right time yet as I'm still learning and can only do my baking when Ben is taking his nap, maybe who knows, in future I might think about this hahahahah... until then maybe I should start training Ben to do the cookies cutting/moulding part hahahahaha...
