Last Wednesday’s meal of French dip sandwiches, fries, coleslaw and homemade cookies was served to a big crowd of 425 church goers.

Fritzi gets to the bottom of the coleslaw to get that dressing all mixed in.

For the au jus, we made a case of this gravy mix.

We used this steak, cooked in our electric roasters, for the french dip sandwiches.

Last Tuesday the kitchen crew made 1400 cookies from scratch, and most of them were gobbled up on Wednesday.

Vicki, Peg and Traci are sharing silly stories whilst rolling the snickerdoodles in cinnamon sugar.

Looks like Jerri had fun scooping cookies all morning.

You’re going to need a big mixer to make these big batches. Thanks for helping this week, Bill. We hope you’ll come back again soon!

Baked and cooling, snickerdoodles have a glorious smell of fall.

Here are recipes for large batches of snickerdoodles, chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin cookies. We made each one 2 times.

Classic Oatmeal Raisin Cookies (9 dozen)

We can fit a double batch in our mixer at once.

1 pound unsalted butter, softened

2 ½  cups firmly packed light brown sugar

1 ½  cups granulated sugar

4 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

4 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground nutmeg

1 tsp salt

8 cups rolled oats

4 cups raisins (or 4 cups chocolate chips)

Preheat over 325* convection. Lightly grease baking sheets or line with parchment.

Cream together butter and sugars until light and fluffy.  Add eggs to butter mixture one at a time, beating well after each.  Add vanilla and beat well.   Combine dry ingredients except oatmeal, add to egg mixture, and stir to blend.  Do not overmix. Stir in oatmeal.   Add raisins and stir just until combined.

Scoop onto baking sheets and press lightly to flatten.  Bake 12 to 14 minutes for soft, chewy cookies; 15 to 18 for crunchy.  Cool 5-10 minutes on baking sheet before removing to cooling rack to cool completely.

CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

10 dozen (a double recipe, 20 dozen, will fit in our Berkel mixer in one batch)

2 cups butter or margarine

2 cups Crisco (can use butter flavored or regular)

3 cups white sugar

3 cups brown sugar, packed

4 tsp vanilla

8 eggs

9 cups flour

4 tsp baking soda

4 tsp salt

8 cups chocolate chips (48 oz)

Cream butter, shortening, sugar and vanilla.  Add eggs and mix well.  Add dry ingredients and stir until thoroughly mixed.  Drop by heaping teaspoonful onto ungreased cookie sheet, lined with parchment paper, and bake at 350* convection for 7-10 minutes or until golden brown.  Remove from cookie sheet and cool.

Snickerdoodles

12 dozen cookies (with #40 disher-purple)

3x recipe = 36 dozen (432 cookies)

2 pounds margarine

3 pounds sugar

8 eggs

2 pounds 12 oz All-purpose Flour, (plus 1 ½ to 2 cups as needed to get thick enough consistency to keep from spreading too much. Bake test cook first.)

8 tsp cream of tartar

4 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 pound sugar

10 tbsp cinnamon

Cream margarine and sugar on medium speed for 5 minutes using flat beater. Add eggs to creamed mixture and mix thoroughly.

Mix dry ingredients. Add to creamed mixture and mix on low speed until well-blended.

Combine cinnamon and sugar. Portion dough with No. 40 dipper and roll in sugar-cinnamon.

Place on parchment paper lined baking sheets.

Bake at 350* convection for 7-10 minutes or until lightly browned but still soft. These cookies puff up at first, then flatten out.