Skip to main content

Brand new here so don't know if I am in the right forum for this. I happened upon this site when Googling about my question. Baking Christmas cookies is one of my favorite joys in life. However it is so time and labor intensive that I started to freeze my doughs ahead of time and then bake within a few weeks of Christmas. Since doughs can be frozen up to 6 months, I actually considered starting my doughs in June. I'm not sure if it's my imagination or factual but I think I can taste a definite difference between frozen dough cookies and fresh dough cookies. This past Christmas I just made the doughs and baked immediately and I think the cookies tasted infinitely better - unfortunately.  While I'd love to give in to the more organized side of me, I don't want to do it at the expense of the flavor of my Christmas cookies. I'd love hearing from others to see if you can taste the difference between frozen-dough cookies and fresh dough cookies. Of course I'm hoping to hear there is no difference, ha ha, but I will definitely defer to the opinion of those here, whatever it is. Thanks!

Last edited by Julia M. Usher
Original Post

Replies sorted oldest to newest

Hi again, Trish! Welcome to the site; I hope you enjoy it. I believe the answer to the above question very much depends on (1) the dough recipe, (2) how you package the dough, and (3) the state (cleanliness) of your freezer. Highly spiced doughs are more likely to have more noticeable dissipation of flavor over time. And if the dough is packaged in permeable wraps, it will pick up off-odors from the freezer more quickly. I usually use my doughs within a 1 to 3 months of freezing them, with no noticeable change in flavor even of my gingerbread dough. But I wrap them twice in plastic and then foil, and then often bag or box them as well. Plus, I store nothing but cookie dough in my freezer to minimize other odors.

Hope this helps a bit. Interested to hear what others have to say.

I do it all the time, but I don't think the cookies are as good.  I wouldn't keep the dough for more than a month if quality is important.  I will freeze leftover sugar cookie dough, but I use the leftovers for testing decorating ideas.  I double ziploc bag my cookie dough.

TY! 

I definitely noticed a difference in quality in my brownie mounds.  I started wondering if I was doing something wrong in the recipe!  But last year when I went from fresh dough to baking, they tasted the way they did before I started freezing the dough.  I definitely won't go more than a month out.  If I notice a difference in taste again this year, I will bite the bullet and just bake on the spot.

Julia M. Usher posted
 I usually use my doughs within a 1 to 3 months of freezing them, with no noticeable change in flavor even of my gingerbread dough. But I wrap them twice in plastic and then foil, and then often bag or box them as well. Plus, I store nothing but cookie dough in my freezer to minimize other odors.

Hope this helps a bit. Interested to hear what others have to say.

I always use air-tight plastic containers for my dough.  And I don't bother wrapping them.  Maybe I need to wrap them in addition?

Thank you for the reply!

trishXXXX posted:
Julia M. Usher posted
 I usually use my doughs within a 1 to 3 months of freezing them, with no noticeable change in flavor even of my gingerbread dough. But I wrap them twice in plastic and then foil, and then often bag or box them as well. Plus, I store nothing but cookie dough in my freezer to minimize other odors.

Hope this helps a bit. Interested to hear what others have to say.

I always use air-tight plastic containers for my dough.  And I don't bother wrapping them.  Maybe I need to wrap them in addition?

Thank you for the reply!

I would definitely wrap the dough. Any bit exposed to air will get dried out.

I actually use to make cookies, cut, bake, cool and freeze them in ziplock type boxes ahead of time and then defrost them the morning I was going to decorate them. I've only had one person tell me they could tell. But I usually only dI'd it a week or so before in order to bake enough, because I was working full time and decorating in the evening.

Add Reply

Post
×
×
×
×
Link copied to your clipboard.
×