We have a commercial kitchen that we lease down in Decatur, GA - it gives us all of the comforts of home ... but with MUCH more efficiency!
First we mix up all of the ingredients in a 25qt. floor mixer - this mixer is about ten times larger than your standard KitchenAid mixer you might have at home. This is where the efficiency starts with the commercial kitchen. I can make four times the dough in this large mixer than I could at home.
Here is a lump of bacon & cheddar dough (see all that yummy bacon in there?!) - I take small sections of it and roll out the dough so it is the appropriate thickness, so the cookies are not too thin and crispy, or too thick and undercooked.
Next we roll out the dough by hand with a wooden rolling pin, individually cut out every single cookie (just like you do with your Christmas cut-out cookies). Here we are making the fire-hydrant shape for our bacon & cheddar cookies. Once the entire rolled section of dough is cut out, the cookies get transferred onto a large, industrial size sheet pan with parchment paper so they do not stick to the pan.
Once the pan is full, we put them into the oven for 18 minutes until they are golden brown. They will be hard to the touch (on the tops) but yet still a little chewy on the inside. This is when we know they are perfectly done. We take them out of the oven and let them cool for at least 30 minutes.
Lastly, into their individual bags ... and off to the market for the day! An average day of baking at the kitchen will produce approximately 700 ounces of cookies, which is just over 40 pounds of cookies. That equates to 3500-4000 individually cut out cookies, or 291-300 dozen!! Linda and & I bake one day per week and put a touch of love into every single cookie we make!
