Ah...For the love of bake sales...

My first foray into baking something for a bake sale - occured this past Saturday when I volunteered to bake something for my son's football team. I have to say - I put my name in for this before I realized the following:

Saturday was going to be a very hot day

I had no chocolate chips in house - and was out of white flour & butter flavored crisco (which I tend to find makes for better cookies when you use it half and half with butter)

There was limited time...

It wasn't looking very promising - but nevertheless, after deciding helping my kid was more important than coveting one very large bar of toblerone chocolate that had recently been given to me - I decided to make cookies. Some version of chocolate chip cookies anyway...

I went to my Betty Crocker cookbook

or my tried and true - favorite recipe on page #51. This has been - as long as I've baked cookies anyway - my most consistent go to for no fail cookies. I've tried the Tollhouse version, and the Martha stewart, this does the trick - hands down. The book is so old (it was my first cookbook ever and I permanently borrowed it from my sister's house when I was 12) the pages are falling apart - but I love it.
Anyway - I bake the cookies, the Toblerone was a great addition - I also threw in pecans...so these were some gourmet cookies - considering they were all butter... and packed them up and brought them in.
Unfortunately, they didn't sell well - seems people prefer the frozen dough cookies and these looked too unfamiliar to be a hot ticket item...but it felt good to have made something & if I'm honest - I made a double recipe and so we did enjoy the spoils at home too :)
This got me thinking about the bake sale and the history of the bake sale...I guess this goes way back. I've always heard about fund raising bake sales and secretely wanted to participate in them as to me, it is an iconic part of American culture - and being Canadian - growing up, anything that was American, was definitely better. I remember watching reruns of "Leave it to Beaver", "The Walton's" and the "Brady Bunch" and there was always a mention of the mythical "bake sale". So, if I'm honest - to participate in this timeless tradition - made me feel...for lack of a better way to put it - very American.

Here's some information I found on how to run a successful bake sale-unfortunately there exists very little in terms of history about the "first bake sale" - which I would have enjoyed reading aobut...

but it's better than nothing: http://www.bigredkitchen.com/2008/10/how-to-run-bake-sale.html

As for the recipe for the cookies (including my modifications for this particular batch) here you go:

3/4	cup granulated sugar
3/4	cup packed brown sugar
1	cup butter or margarine, softened
1	egg
2 1/4	cups whole wheat flour
1	teaspoon baking soda
1/2	teaspoon salt
1	cup coarsely chopped pecans
1	cup of coarsely chopped Tobblerone milk chocolate and nougat bar

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1.	Heat oven to 375ºF.
2.	Mix sugars, butter and egg in large bowl. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt (dough will be stiff). Stir in nuts and chocolate chips.
3.	Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls about 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet.
4.	Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until light brown (centers will be soft). Cool slightly; remove from cookie sheet. Cool on wire rack.