As we look forward to the end of the school year at our house, a quick look at our calendar shows that there are tons of things packed into these last few weeks. And I’m supposed to bring cookies to three of them. Ever have a week or two like that?
I love baking from scratch, but anything I can do to save time is a winner in my book. It doesn’t take much longer to make up a double batch of cookie dough, and it’s a huge time savings to only clean the kitchen and utensils once. This tip is great for having ready-made dough for busy times, and it would also be useful for those who don’t typically need a whole batch of cookies at a time. You can bake up as many or as few as you want once they’re waiting for you in the freezer.
To try it, mix up a double batch of your favorite cookie recipe. While some of them bake, grab an extra cookie sheet and portion some out to freeze. I love using my cookie scoop to get them uniform sizes–it’s like a tiny ice cream scoop for cookie dough (I use it for meatballs too!). Once the cookie sheet is full of dough balls, pop it in the freezer for an hour or two, however long it takes for the dough to harden. You want the dough to be frozen enough that it won’t stick together when you store it.
For storage, you can use a gallon-size freezer zip-top bag, or try an empty, washed gallon-sized ice cream pail as pictured above. When you’re ready to bake, place as many cookie dough pieces as you need on a cookie sheet and bake as indicated in your original cookie recipe, checking for doneness at the end of the usual time, and possibly allowing another minute or so as needed.
I think this would also be great for the holidays too–what do you think? My chocolate chip cookie recipe worked great for this–have you tried freezing dough before? Anything that didn’t freeze well? I’ll update as I try this with other recipes beside chocolate chip, but I’d love to know what’s worked (or hasn’t worked) for our readers. Let us know in the comments or on Facebook!
