The St. Francis Academy bazaar in Bally has been experiencing fresh baked cookies for 40 years.
In 1975 when the SFA bazaar started, the committee decided they needed something sweet to draw in the crowds. Barbara Stahl, who had a cake baking/decorating business, volunteered a family recipe. “It was my mother’s recipe, Helen Brooke. It was a simple recipe but everyone loved it,” Stahl says. The first year we made about 30 pounds of cutout cookies which sold out quickly, she recalls. “After that it went like crazy, with people standing in line before the bazaar opened just to get the cookies,” Stahl says. The drawback to the recipe is the time commitment to making the cookies – it is a thin recipe and needs to be refrigerated overnight, she says.
For the first couple of years of the bazaar, Stahl with her volunteer mother crews made the cookies in her home’s basement kitchen where she had two ovens. Eventually they moved the cookie baking to the school’s kitchen. “We would bake all day when our kids were in school. We had fun.” She says the crews were divided into the various jobs needed to make the cookies, assembly line style, such as dough rollers (and all batches needed to be rolled to the same thickness for uniformity), cutters, cookies sheet cleaners.
Stahl continued to help bake cookies until a couple of years ago when family commitments forced her to scale back her volunteer efforts. Many of the initial bakers, now grandmothers, still help bake cookies.
For the past several years the cookie baking has happened in the kitchen adjacent to the school with the same commitment of the bazaar founders. Mixing happens during the day, when the children are in school, according to Angie Snyder who coordinates the cookie baking with Mary Ellen Maloney. They plan to make 1,500 pounds of cutout cookies, available for half the price of a local bakery known for its quality.
A couple of years ago the bazaar committee purchased a cookie sheeter which basically rolls out the dough to uniform thickness each and every time. Dough is mixed twice a week. Several crews then cut and bake the cookies during the week, days or evenings. Over 100 family and friends work to make the cookies weekly. They started the process in September.
After they finish the cutouts they start making other cookie varieties. They have gradually added varieties over the years with chocolate chip cookies being the second largest. They make the chocolate chip during the students’ Halloween parade. They also make oatmeal raisin and peanut butter.
For all the baking Snyder estimates they will use 750 pounds of flour, 700 pounds of sugar, 210 dozen eggs (2,250 eggs), 400 pounds of butter, 70 pounds of chocolate chips, and 80 pounds of colored decorating sugars.
Stahl and her crew also made gingerbread men, making up to 700 one year. This year the cookie committee is bringing back the gingerbread men which will be individually decorated and packaged. Children will have the opportunity to decorate dough boy cookies.
The SFA bazaar is Nov. 14 from 8 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. It features homemade crafts, crafters, raffle baskets, raffles, baked goods, a live nativity, Santa Claus, secret Santa shop, and new this year is an apple baking contest. More information can be found at the SFA home and school association’s Facebook page.
