Help! My oven just died in the middle of Christmas baking.
I had just measured out 8 dozen Anzacs (sigh); I always give cookie trays as holiday gifts! I'm looking for sympathy from people who would understand...but also considerations on handling frozen cookie dough. And suggestions for no-bake treats I can give as gifts instead.
And with three kids in college, should I consider a Kickstarter to fund my new oven? ;-)
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16 Comments
I do have a batch of bourbon balls marinating in the fridge, thanks to all your suggestions...
Taking it to a shop and letting them test it and selling you a new element. Easy repair...pull the old element and plug in a new one. The people at the shop will help you.
Sometimes it's pretty obvious that there is a crack in the element. Pull the element and look for a appliance parts store that's not big box chain store. They can test it for you.
I ordered a new igniter, $40. Only thing is, hubby won't get to it until this weekend, poor guy. But thanks for your support!
Next- keep all your cookie dough. I have MANY times kept dough successfully for a few months refrig or longer when frozen.
But my biggest advice: Go out and spend little $ on a Farberware portable convection oven. Caterers use them on jobs and, believe or not, I use mine as my one oven (just 2 of us) at home!
Convection baking is THE BEST for everything, imo. It browns so nicely and ditto for roasting. I paid $175 new for mine and you can usually find them on craigslist, used. While they say you can bake simultaneously on 2 racks, that's not true in my 30 yrs catering, so only count on one rack. They bake/roast faster than a reg oven and I adjust all my temps to 50 degrees below a reg oven. I bet you'll love it, and even use it as a back-up after you get your larger oven.best of luck.
You call also use rum or whiskey.
Make some no-bake refrigerator cakes...British, Italian, American versions are all good. They do require refrigerator space, so if you're only giving out a few at a time, this might work. Here are some recipes:
Dolce Torino from Piedmont (Chocolate)
online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904060604576574790327460286.html?mod=WeekendHeader_Rotator
Lemon Cream Icebox cake
http://www.thekitchn.com/nobake-recipe-lemon-cream-icebox-cake-cookbook-recipe-188988
Mango no-bake cheesecake
http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/12553/no-bake-mango-cheesecake.aspx
Nancy, I'm saving your suggestions for when the 95F temps hit here in PA and I can't bear to turn on the oven. Heck, I might consider one for Christmas dinner's dessert. Alas, I mail most of my treats and suspect shipping companies would not be kind to cheesecake.
And yes, I can relate. When I lived in Massachusetts, I spent a lot of Christmas holidays with my Weber charcoal grill set at at the edge of my opened garage door, waiting to see whether power would be restored and hoping I wouldn't have to finish the meal out there. It turns out that you can do a lot of cooking on a Weber grill--though I never did test it out on cookies.