Baking Day

The tea party is rapidly approaching, and I know I won't have as much time as I'd like to get everything done.  Sure, I could do shortcuts like store-bought cookies and frozen hors d'oeuvres, but that's not my style.  I tend to make everything myself, probably to stoke my own ego.  Also, because this kind of cooking is my specialty.

Baking day comes at least a week before the actual party.  Nearly all baked goods can be frozen, defrosted, and refreshed in a low oven until no one can tell the difference.

The key that I've learned from restaurant baking is to make the lowest temperature items first.  It's much easier to preheat an oven than to wait for it to drop a hundred degrees.  So I planned my afternoon around that.  There weren't any yeast items to time; I made pastry crust first to refrigerate while everything else was being made, but the rest of it was mix and bake.

There will be a similar prep binge the day before the party, when I slice, mix, and boil ingredients so they're ready to assemble.  This will minimize the time it takes to set out everything that afternoon, but it also hides the mountains of dishes you washed.

This is why people hire caterers.