After a couple of weeks of Biscotti madness I thought it would be good to blog about it. It has been a fabulous experience and adventure and I got to do it all with my friend Karen from Karen’s Little Kitchen
As our first big bake we knew we were in for a challenge as we had to bake over 7000 Biscotti biscuits – no problem!!! In fact it’s so easy let’s pick something that needs to be baked twice (I blame Karen for this decision!!). The ingredients had been calculated showing us how much we needed of everything – this included 25 bags of flour and 378 eggs – this was going to be a big shop!! I will also point out that this same week, my husband and I were getting our house ready to go on the market. This involved de-cluttering and clearing each room, including the kitchen, so arriving home with boxes full of ingredients was going against the house clearing plan! Luckily they would be turned into delicious Biscotti in no time!
A system quickly formed which ensured every stage of the preparation and baking was time efficient and ran smoothly, with the aim to have something in the oven at all times. The Biscotti was all baked once before the second bake commenced as this stage requires the oven to be at a lower temperature.
The steps I took were
Round 1
- Mix the ingredients
- Roll into a sausage shape
- Bake for 25-30 mins
- Remove from oven and cool
- Store
- Repeat
Round 2
- Spread out on tray
- Bake for 15 minutes
- Remove from oven and let cool
- Turn each piece of Biscotti over
- Bake for 15 minutes
- Remove from oven and let cool
- Bag and tie
- Repeat
Round 3
- Stick labels on tags
- Cut string to size
- Attach labels to bags
- Pack in large box
- Repeat!
- Sausage shaped and ready to bake
- After the first bake
- Stored
- Cut and ready for second bake
- Bagged
- Tag tied on
- Packed and ready for transportation
- Taking the last batch out the oven
There was a lot of counting involved throughout this process and I got to the stage where I was counting even when I didn’t need to! I also noticed I was passing the day in 25 or 15 minute periods as I set the timer to start every time something was put in the oven, this caused each baking session to blur into one and time to fly by!! However I can now bake a batch of Biscotti blindfolded!
For the Biscotti we had to design our own labels and we got them printed onto clear stickers that looked fantastic and professional. I would definitely use this style of label for any future projects.
For delivery I loaded up the car, which took me about 20 minutes and some serious tessellation to get all the boxes into the car. I then set off towards Keighley with the radio on and the sun shining. I arrived at the new Gin Explorer offices with the Biscotti delivery and some homemade carrot cakes for the staff as a thank you for letting us get involved. It was lovely to meet the team and see their new offices. I also presented them with a bag of Biscotti off-cuts which was opened straight away and tucked in to – I was keen to remove all traces of Biscotti from the house now the order was complete!
I have really enjoyed taking on this order and working with Karen was lots of fun. Although it was tiring at times and I had moments of Biscotti madness I would do it all again!!