Make Your Christmas Cookies Early

While the holidays are certainly one of the most exciting times of the year, there is no denying they’re also the most hectic. And although Thanksgiving seems to be the official kickoff for the holiday season, you usually have a couple of weeks before you get really inundated with holiday commitments. Instead of waiting until Christmas Eve to make cookies, prepare ahead of time and freeze your dough until you’re ready to bake. This way, you get to just do the fun stuff at Christmas and it’s much less time-consuming. Here are some tips for holiday cookie preparation:

Sugar cookies are the classic Christmas cookie.

Drop cookies
While sugar cookies are the go-to cookies of the season, we all know there’s always room for chocolate chip. To freeze any sort of chunky cookie, like chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, or white chocolate macadamia, make sure the cookies are separated before they freeze, or else they’ll be impossible to separate until the dough thaws. This also allows you to grab a couple to bake early if your sweet tooth starts calling! Simply scoop the dough out into individual sizes, freeze on a cookie sheet for a little while, and then put them into freezer bags until you’re ready to bake them.

Slice cookies
Round cookies that you slice and bake freeze best in a log shape. This is good for shortbread cookies, sandies and peanut butter cookies. While you can make the dough and simply roll it into a log, ensure you have a perfectly round one by putting the dough in a cardboard tube, like the one from your paper towels, with a slit down the side. Once the dough is frozen, you can remove the tube and wrap it in wax paper to protect the log from freezer burn.

Sugar cookies
Sugar cookie dough is one of the easiest to prepare in advance. You can leave the dough in a mass, wrapped up or placed in an airtight bowl. Or, you can even roll it out early, storing it flat at the bottom of your freezer. You fit multiple layers of cookie dough in a single freezer bag – just make sure there’s a layer or wax or parchment paper between each one, so they don’t stick together when they’re frozen.