It’s never too early to start your BRIGHT fundraising but you don’t need to set up in the cancer centre lobby to raise BRIGHT funds by baking at this time of year!
If you work outside the home, hold a bake sale of your own at your workplace. Enlist friends and family members to help stock your bake sale table. Try for variety in flavours and colours. Make sure you let co-workers know ahead of time so they have some cash to throw your way.
Long-time BRIGHT participant and volunteer Lee Prokaska has done both bake sales and cookie exchanges for years.
“Everyone, no matter what winter holiday they may celebrate, can be enticed by sweets at this time of year,” Lee said. “There must be something about the month of December!”
For workplace bake sales, she and her teammates baked their hearts out and advertised via workplace posters, encouraging other employees to bring their own baked goods to add to the array.
For a cookie exchange in her home, Lee invited eight to 10 friends to bring four to five dozen cookies to exchange with each other. The goal is for each participant to go home with about half a dozen of each type of cookie, along with a few recipes.
She provided some festive beverages and munchies and put out a donation jar, encouraging participants to drop in $10 or $20.
“When people understand the reason for raising money, they are generally happy to give,” she said. “And it’s a lot of fun.”
Although an experienced, versatile baker, Lee always starts with a basic from her childhood: her Mom’s sugar cookies.
“There’s a lot to be said for tradition, particularly at this time of year” she said. “My sisters and I decorated these cookies when we were kids; my adult daughters decorated them when they were young.”
Lee’s Mom’s sugar cookie recipe:
1 cup margarine or butter
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg
2 cups flour
Cream margarine or butter with sugar. Add egg and vanilla and beat well. Add flour and salt and mix. Chill dough for an hour or two. Roll out to about 1/8 of an inch thick and cut with seasonal cookie cutters. Bake at 375F/190C for 8-10 minutes. Cool on a rack and ice.
Icing:
If you have your own icing recipe that hardens a bit, use that. If not, try this:
1 egg white
Dash of vanilla
Icing sugar
Beat the egg white and vanilla, then gradually add icing sugar until the mix is spreadable but not runny. If you want more icing, add another egg white and more icing sugar. Divide into small containers and add food colouring in desired colours.
Decorate the cookies with icing and top with sprinkles if you have them! Et voila!
