When Whitney was a brand-new-rookie-mom, I brought over a half-cooked lasagne and a carton of cookie dough balls from a specialty deli. I thought I was pretty darn smart. Unlike most other things I thought I knew before having a baby of my own, I was right about the cookies! You can bake them one (or two) at a time and have a freshly baked dessert 20 minutes after the mood strikes.
And now, they’re at grocery stores. Yay! See how happy I am?
I like my hot chocolate chip cookie served over cold vanilla ice cream.
In the interest of full disclosure, Alec and I have also discovered the almost-as-easy DIY version and we keep our homemade dough balls in the freezer all the time. A few weeks ago while our babies were sleeping, we:
- whipped up a full batch of our favorite chocolate chip cookies
- baked two hot cookies as a reward while we did the rest of the work
- formed the rest into cookie shapes on a cookie sheet (as close together as you can get ‘em)
- froze the little cookie dough wads
In the morning, we took our frozen cookie dough wads and put them in a large freezer ziplock labeled with the correct baking temp and time. Add about 2 minutes to the baking time for frozen cookie dough.
If you don’t care about a hot fresh cookie every night — I don’t understand you, but — we have many other fun + useful projects for parents in our makin it series.
I don’t know how you people limit yourself to just two cookies.
oh yes, this is the way to go! to make the shaping easier, try getting a disher (available at most restaurant supply stores for cheap) in whatever size you like. it goes so fast and the cookies are fairly uniform.
Best Idea Ever!
This works with pre-made cookie dough, as well. You can cut according to directions, freeze and store. Homemade is SO much better. I’m gonna go make some for my friend right now.
PS. Holidays bring pre-rolled sheets of cookie dough from Pillsbury, etc. I buy these at the end of Easter or Valentine’s and freeze them for almost-instant cookie-making fun. Takes the doldrums out of rainy days. They’re also awesome for preschool treat day – no fuss, no muss.
Tom’s Cookies are the best! And nobody really needs to know that you didn’t make and bake them from scratch. Just make sure you hid the carton well. Of course, all the other moms will hate you for your mad homemaking skillz, but whatever.
Also, two cookies are not enough.
One cookie with ice cream or several cookies plus milk. Calcium…?
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I make cookie dough and freeze it in little dough balls for convenient, one-cookie-for-each-person baking! But you know what happens every time? I slowly eat all the cookie dough straight out of the freezer. Fail.
I have to agree with Whitney. Why don’t you have more cookies for those of us who can’t eat them?
@Padmini, you should feel free to freeze however many gluten-free dough balls you want.
@Amelia, I have to say I’m impressed. I have heard of eating dough from the fridge, but never the freezer. That’s like cookiesicles. I bet if you put a stick in that, you’d make it big on pinterest among the cakepop crowd.
I totally rock the straight from the freezer cookie dough. By the time I get it out, and close the freezer door, it’s soft enough to eat. Also easier to hide out eating than a baking cookie…
Since I eat my cookies after bedtime, it’s not very hard to sneak. Shhh.
uhh, that was supposed to be my kids’ bedtime, not mine.