I think making cookies is a ton of fun. They are one of my favorite things to bake. I make a giant platter of various kinds for Christmas gifts for friends and family. But I don’t have the time or energy to make and bake all the different types of cookies in a single day.
My solution was to freeze the unbaked cookie dough. This allows me to make the dough ahead of time and then bake it off when I am ready. I have a particular way that I do this, and I thought I’d share it with you.
In case you think that I’m some sort of baking genius, I’m totally not. I just worked in a bakery for a while and saw how they do things. Obviously I am nowhere near the scale of a bakery, but I adapted it so that it works for my small home kitchen.
First, I make the cookie dough. I don’t do anything special, I just follow my recipe as usual. Sometimes I’ll bake some right away, but most of the time I’m probably going to freeze it. But before I freeze, I do something else.
I portion the dough. We’ve talked about scoops already, so you know how that works. I simply scoop out the desired amount of cookie dough onto a parchment lined cookie sheet. I will put the scoops close together, since I’m not worried about the dough spreading while baking. Once all of my cookie dough is scooped, I’m going to put the whole sheet into the freezer. If you don’t have the space for a full cookie sheet in your freezer, use a size that works for you. I’ve also used 8×8 pans for this, you just might have to use a few of them.
I will leave the cookie dough in the freezer for about an hour. This lets the dough get firm enough to hold its shape, but it’s not usually all the way frozen just yet. At this point, I’m going to move the cookie dough balls into a labeled gallon freezer bag. They will go back into the freezer until I’m ready to bake. On that freezer bag, I will label what kind of cookie it is, the date the dough was made, and baking instructions. This way, I know at a glance all the information I need about this cookie and I don’t have to pull out a recipe to bake the dough either.
Have you ever frozen cookie dough before? How did it work out for you? Are you going to try it?