What is the attraction of boxed baking mixes? Well, let’s see, open box, dump contents in bowl, add two or three liquid ingredients, mix, and whoo-la. You are done, except for the baking, because baking is what you wanted to do, right? You wanted to bake, not spend a quarter of an hour assembling half-a-dozen or more dry ingredients on your counter or table, measuring each one and then putting everything away.

Of course, you know the downside of those boxed mixes, too: highly refined ingredients of indeterminate age laced with polysyllabic, unpronounceable preservatives.

How would you like to gain nearly all the convenience of baking with a boxed mix, but retain control over every ingredient that goes into your family’s cookies, cakes, and muffins? I am going to show you how, using this recipe below for Old Fashioned Oatmeal Cookies. First the recipe and the instructions to make one batch:

Old-Fashioned Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients

½ cup white sugar

½ cup brown sugar

¾ cup (1½ stick, 12 tablespoons) butter (or margarine) softened

2 eggs

1½ cup flour (all purpose or whole wheat - soft wheat best)

2 cups rolled oat (or non-instant oatmeal)

1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 tablespoon vinegar

Optional additions

1 cup raisins (soaked)

½ cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Directions

Preheat oven to 350º; soak raisins and chop nuts if they are being used.

Cream together sugar and shortening (butter or margarine); add eggs and mix well.

Combine flour, oats, cinnamon, and salt (but not baking soda!); add to sugar/egg mixture and eggs and mix.

Make a well in dough and put in baking soda; add vinegar and stir into dough after bubbles form.

Add raisins and nuts, if desired.

Drop by spoonfuls on ungreased cookie sheet and bake about 10 minutes. Makes 2-3 dozen.

Assembly Line

Now here is how to assemble the ingredients for these cookies just once, but make them 4, 6, 8 or more times. First you will need to make sure you have enough of each ingredient to make as many multiples of the cookies as you want to set up and enough freezer space for the batches. You will also need one sandwich size zipper baggie and one quart size zipper baggie for each batch of ingredients and one gallon freezer bag for each three-four batches. Here is how to work:

Decide how many batches of cookies you want to set up. The last time I did this I made one batch and set up eight, so that is what I will use as my example. Put four sandwich baggies, opened and standing up, in each of two loaf pans. Do the same thing with your eight quart size baggies.

Measure the sugars for the batch you are making and while you have the sugars out, measure the same amount of white and brown sugar into each sandwich bag. Then continue assembling your recipe. When you measure your flour, oats, cinnamon and salt, measure each one also into each of the quart bags. (This recipe uses vinegar and soda for leavening, but in most recipes you would add your baking soda and/or baking powder to the same baggie with your flour.)

You can add your butter to the baggies with the sugar if you desire. If you do that, only three batches will fit in a gallon freezer bag. If you do not add the butter, four will fit in each freezer bag. When you are finished, seal each baggie, removing as much air as you can and then place the same number of sugar and flour baggies into gallon freezer bags. Write the name of the recipe on a slip of paper and put it in the freezer bag too, or label and date the bag. Your cookie “mixes” will keep 3-6 months in the freezer, but you are not likely to keep them around that long!

When you want to make these cookies again, just take out one sugar and one flour baggie. Dump the sugar (and butter, if frozen with it) into your bowl and allow to come to room temperature before blending. After you have added and mixed your eggs, just dump in the contents of the flour baggie. You have eliminated most of the time you would otherwise spend assembling the ingredients and measuring them. Your kids will love this and you will like the way it reduces their baking messes.

Here is a bonus tip for you, too. Instead of buying brown sugar, make your own. Add unsulphured molasses to white sugar. (Molasses can be found where honey and syrup are kept at your grocer’s.) I use my mixer to do this, but it can be done by hand with a whisk. Heat the jar of molasses in the microwave until it pours easily — the more molasses, the darker the brown sugar, so adjust to your liking. Store the brown sugar in a wide mouth jar with a tight fitting lid.

Happy baking!