Kitchen Tip: Freezing Cookie Dough

A large batch of cookie dough can be a dangerous thing. Especially when there aren't that many of you in the house. (Or even if there are.) But rather than cutting down on the recipe, I prefer to make the full batch and reserve 2/3 of it for freezing and baking at a later date.

Here's what I do:

1. I use a cookie scoop or spoon to portion out and roll evenly-sized balls of dough. I lay these out on a plastic-lined baking sheet (don't need to be spaced out) and then cover the tray with another sheet of plastic.

2. I pop the whole tray into the freezer for 2 hours until frozen solid. (This is done to keep the dough from smooshing together when you transfer them to the freezer bag.)

3. Then I drop the frozen dough balls into a heavy duty zipped freezer bag. Squeeze out all the air, seal, and store in the freezer for up to 2 months. (Longer than that, I find that they start to absorbs freezer smells.)

And you're done! 

The benefit of this method is that, come baking time, all you have to do is pluck as many dough balls as you'd like cookies out of the bag, arranged them on a baking sheet, and bake. You don't even need to let them thaw! Just increase the original recipe baking time by 1-3 minutes, depending on your oven and the recipe (keep an eye on it the first time until you figure out the perfect amount.)

While you can, of course, also just roll all the dough into a tube for a "slice and bake" style cookie, I prefer this method because it's best for baking just one or two cookies at a time when you get a craving.

(Which I guess can also be a pretty dangerous thing...)

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