I did a post like this about four years ago, but after more experimentation, I have added more ideas and recommendations. Now, I will continue my adherence to ethical standards for Mad Scientists to bring you, my reader, the best results possible without harming experimental gingerbread people. Now, remember the idea is to save time, and more importantly, for your creations to taste better. I hope you like it.

1. Always toast your nuts. If you have ever seen a baking show, the thing contestants get lower scores for is not toasting their nuts. Toasting brings out the flavor of all nuts. Here’s a caution though: don’t burn them. Also, be cautious using nuts as so many people have allergies.
2. Liquor can replace extracts. Chocolate extract can be replaced by chocolate vodka; you will save $3 – $4 per bottle. Fireball replaces cinnamon extract with similar savings. Make your own vanilla by splitting two vanilla beans and adding them to a mason jar with one cup of vodka. This should give you a year’s worth of vanilla.
3. Buy new baking soda, baking powder, cream of tartar, and corn starch. This will prevent the annual first batch of flat cookies. You know, the ones you eat while you make the next batch or put on the cookie tray for the office or that neighbor you’re not so thrilled about. Put the old baking soda in the fridge to catch bad odors.
4. Speaking of dates, how old is that cocoa powder? Are those Hershey kisses from last year’s baking season? You know, they are no longer dark brown but kinda have a white haze on them. Did you know ground spices lose flavor after time? It’s better to keep whole spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves.
5. If you do fruit treats, contain them separately. No one wants fruit on their peanut butter blossoms. Also, don’t use mostly sugar jams (rhymes with druckers) or jellies – get the good stuff. You might want to get them at the local farmers market.
6. Use the right flours. If a recipe calls for cake flour, use it. The exception is when you have food sensitive people like gluten free or nut free; let’s not make folks sick.
   
7. Buy enough of the right butter and fats: Crisco, coconut oil, and cookig oils. Many people just buy butter and exchange salted and unsalted which I am guilty of from time to time. To quote Steve Rodgers, “Son, just don’t!” Again if there are dietary restrictions, do what you have to do, but not all oils are interchangeable.
8. Package cookie mixes can be our friends with this caveat: refrigerate finished dough before baking. With sugar cookies, adding three tablespoons of flour helps prevent the spreading flats when 12 cookies merge into one big mess. Next, I haven’t done a peanut blossom from scratch for 20 years; the package works fine and saves time. I bake six dozen a year. (The hard part is removing the foil from all the kisses.) The package also works for oatmeal and fancy cookies like linzer cookies. (Erin’s Elderberry’s makes a great home linzer baking kit.)
9. One last word of advice: don’t buy baking supplies from the “Dollar Store” without carbon dating.