Cookie holiday season is upon us. Do you freeze dough ahead...?

M

mariadnoca

Moderator
I always end up doing everything at once which takes a toll and really wipes me out. However, I tried freezing my snickerdoodle dough a couple weeks and the cookies were really inferior than when fresh. Ever since I’ve been afraid to freeze dough.

How do you get through holiday baking season? Do you pace it out through the month or do it all with a couple of days (like me)?

 
I refrigerate or freeze dough. Ever since I watch an bakery episode and watched the baker

scoop out balls of dough from a 12x16" covered plastic container "for their daily 4 dozen cookies," my life changed. Ah, I realized. THAT is how they have oatmeal and chocolate chip and sugar cookies and brownies...all freshly baked, but not necessarily prepped that day.

I can mix up the dough anytime, store it, then scoop and bake as many as I want any time. I bake them fresh...always, because as the person who paid for the ingredients and did all the work, I want and deserve that first "still warm" cookie off the tray.

Also, I've read several articles that say the sugar in the dough goes through a change the longer it sits, so, for example, 24-48 hours is good for a chocolate chip cookie dough. It also gives time to hydrate the flour used in the cookie.

I've also scooped and frozen flattened balls of unbaked dough but have found that those are just too tempting for me to grab out of the freezer and gnaw. And that wasn't a typo...I literally have to GNAW the frozen dough, chips and nuts to eat it.

I love it.

 
I freeze dough too!

For my decorated sugar cookies I freeze the dough in big slabs that are ready to roll out once thawed. Other cookies usually already scooped. I also bake cake layers ahead of time and freeze.

I won't be baking much this season, spending a good bit of it in FL caring for my father and my mother (she was hospitalized and now is in rehab and we are just hoping she returns to her baseline which isn't all that good to begin with).

Can you describe why the frozen snickerdoodle was inferior? Wasit rolled in the sugar cinnamon before freezing?

 
I make the dough and bake one type cookie at a time, and after cooling,will then freeze the finished

cookies, wrapped well, in our NON-frost free big freezer in the basement. The cookies keep beautifully for 3 months that way, and I always have a nice variety on hand for drop-in company, cookie exchanges, gift giving, holiday gatherings, my personal sweet tooth yearnings, or whatever!

I oftentimes make dough a day or two before baking holiday cookies in order to let it chill well in the refrigerator, but I have never tried freezing the dough in advance. The only reason I can think of for my approach is because that's the way my mom and grandmother always made and stored their Christmas cookies!

 
They came out like hard flat hockey pucks. The texture was all wrong after freezing the dough

I can’t recall if I rolled them in sugar before freezing, I doubt it. I think I froze in a slab, I have a ridiculous small drawer freezer, so think I thawed, then rolled/baked.

Hope you mom bounces back. (((Hugs to you)))

 
Thank you!

I can't imagine what happened with your dough.

I'm a lazy snickerdoodle baker and put the 'rolling sugar/cinnamon' mixture inside the dough:)

 
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