How to Plan a Holiday Cookie Baking Day With One Stand Mixer

The holidays are when most home bakers make the most dough in the shortest time. Cookie swaps, gift tins, school parties and family gatherings can all land in the same few weeks. With one stand mixer, the bowl usually becomes the bottleneck. Here's how to plan a baking day so it doesn't.

1. Pick your recipes, then put them in order

Choose your cookie recipes ahead of time and decide which order to mix them in. A simple rule: mix doughs that need to chill first, and save quick drop cookies for later in the day. Chilled doughs then rest while you keep mixing.

2. Prep ingredients before you start the mixer

Measure out each recipe's dry ingredients into separate containers before you mix anything. Set out butter early so it softens. Once the mixer starts, you want to move straight from one dough to the next.

3. Stop washing the bowl between doughs

This is where most of the time goes. Each new dough normally means scraping, washing and drying the mixer bowl. With a MIXAID™ silicone bowl liner inside your bowl, you lift the finished dough out in its liner, drop in a fresh liner and start the next recipe right away. For the full method, see How to Bake Back-to-Back Batches Without Stopping to Wash the Bowl.

4. Chill dough in the liner

Each MIXAID™ set comes with three liners and three matching lids. Snap a lid on a filled liner and it goes straight into the fridge. No transferring dough to a separate container, and no extra dishes.

5. Bake in waves

While one dough chills, bake the one that's ready. A rhythm of mix, chill, bake keeps the oven and the mixer busy at the same time.

6. Clean up once

At the end of the day, the liners go in the dishwasher together. Your mixer bowl may barely need a rinse.

Make sure your liner fits

MIXAID™ liners are shaped for specific KitchenAid bowls. The 5 Qt set fits Tilt-Head 5 Qt mixers, and the 7 Qt set fits Bowl-Lift 7 Qt mixers. If you're shopping for a baker this season, check which mixer style they own first.

Happy baking, and here's to a holiday season with fewer dishes.