Tuesday Tip: Freezing Cookie Dough

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How many times have you wanted a cookie fresh from the oven, but didn't actually want to go through the work of making them? How often do you find a recipe that makes three dozen more cookies than you actually need? How often do you make a batch of cookies and, after the few days it takes to eat them up, they taste a little... stale?

I've been there. You've been there, too.

Today, we're going to solve this problem. While freezing cookie dough isn't a new idea, I find it helpful to be reminded of this every so often. This is a surprisingly easy trick to forget. Here are few tips for freezing cookie dough with the best results.

Freezing Cookie Dough:

  • Scoop cookie dough onto a cookie sheet and place in the freezer until cookie dough gets hard and no longer sticky. This can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 hour.
  • Remove cookie sheet from freezer and place the frozen cookie scoops into an insulated freezer bag or Tupperware container, making sure the seal is airtight.
  • Label bag or container with the date and type of cookie as well as the baking temperature and time (important information to remember!).
  • Freeze cookie dough for up to 4-6 weeks.

When baking frozen cookie dough, you do not have to thaw the cookie dough. Simply place the frozen, pre-scooped cookie dough onto a baking sheet and bake for 2-3 minutes longer than the original recipe recommends. That's it!

This method will work for freezing and baking all drop cookies (chocolate chip, oatmeal, peanut butter, etc).

Vanilla Bean Pudding

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Vanilla Bean Pudding

Vanilla Bean Pudding

Simplicity.

It's an idea we all ascribe to, a concept we all strive for, and a belief we all can't help but hold faith in. If we could simplify our lives, everything would be easier. If we could control the day to day chaos, we would be happier. Simplicity. Even the word itself brings up images of organized bookshelves and Norman Rockwell paintings.

But, as I've realized over the past few weeks, simplicity can have many meanings.

Vanilla Bean Pudding

When I think of a simple lifestyle, I flashback to reruns of Leave It To Beaver and The Brady Bunch. A hot, homemade meal is on the table precisely at six o'clock every evening. The house is always spotless, no excuses (you never know when company will arrive). Even the linen closets are photogenic enough to grace the cover of Good Housekeeping. If chaos does enter this genuinely unnatural world, it is dealt with so elegantly, so gracefully, that the issue simply evaporates by the end of the scheduled half hour period.

I can imagine maintaining that lifestyle is more trouble than it's worth. Not to mention, you know, impossible.

So how can we simplify our own lives without looking to The Wonder Years for advice?

The truth is that there is no quick, cookie cutter answer. We all have different ideas of what a little simplicity would do for ourselves. Some dream of keeping house like Martha Stewart and finding peace in the familiarity. Others imagine moving to the mountains and freeing themselves from everything but running water. I dream of a cup of tea, a good book, and unplugging myself from the electronic world, if only for a few hours.

Vanilla Bean Pudding

I started my personal quest for simplicity by uncluttering the bits and pieces of my life. I stopped working so many hours a week, opting for a more reasonable forty. I've gained a good deal more sanity with a cut in pay. The pursuit of money, as we all know (but often forget), is not everything.

I cleaned up my room. I sorted through the nightmare that is my food prop closet. I'm trying to take small steps every day to maintaining a more organized home. I have always been drawn to the internet, wasting days and weeks of my life doing things that are utterly forgettable (can you even remember what you looked at yesterday?). It's easy to get caught up between blogs and Google searches, ignoring the hands making circles around the clock. I cleaned up my virtual life, sparing only the websites that are most dear to me from harsh reality of the delete button. I'm trying to watch less television.

Even though I can't remove all of the chaos or complexity in my life (and nor would I want to), I've made room for simple moments. Baking in the kitchen while the radio serenades me from the next room. Giving myself over to the camera for an hour and letting food divulge its secrets. Reading beautiful, haunting novels near a blazing fireplace. Savoring a small bowl of vanilla bean pudding as the winter sun sets.

Simple moments.

That's the secret to simplicity.

What do your simple moments look like?

Vanilla Bean Pudding

Vanilla Bean Pudding is simple and unpretentious. Lovely warmed for cold evenings or chilled for hot summer afternoons, this pudding is sweet comfort food. It is thickened with a combination of cornstarch and egg yolks which lends a creamy, smooth texture. Vanilla bean adds such a pure flavor to the pudding—the vanilla bean pods are steamed in the milk to add extra flavor—but vanilla extract can be used in a pinch.

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Cinnamon Sugar Cake with Brown Sugar Cinnamon Buttercream

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Cinnamon Sugar Cake with Brown Sugar Cinnamon Buttercream

Cinnamon Sugar Cake with Brown Sugar Cinnamon Buttercream

We are creatures of habit.

Good habits, bad habits, healthy habits, poor habits—we have them all. Some we are proud of, like our ability to be someplace on time or flossing our teeth before bed each evening. Some we are ashamed of, like the amount of books we don't make time to read or how often we bite our nails. Some are hard to keep and others are hard to lose. We have hundreds of little habits and, whether we like it or not, they help to define us. They help us through the day.

Cinnamon Sugar Cake with Brown Sugar Cinnamon Buttercream

I originally sat down to write a post about my cravings to have a sweet ending with every meal, but I soon realized I wrote about that exactly one year ago. Since I've been trying to eat healthier in the new year (as I attempt every year), I often feel my sweet cravings hold me back from my fantasy health food diet. I plan on eating carrot sticks and quinoa, but cake finds its way into my daydreams instead. Sweetness has become a habit, much to the chagrin of my dentist.

I have a few good habits I'm proud to share. I make time to exercise every week. I eat breakfast every morning. I try to find the positive in every situation. I also have a few habits I would like to break. I wish I had the motivation to be more productive. I wish I made more time for the people I care about. It is as easy for me to be cruel as to be kind.

Cinnamon Sugar Cake with Brown Sugar Cinnamon Buttercream Cinnamon Sugar Cake with Brown Sugar Cinnamon Buttercream

It's easy to be hard on ourselves when we struggle to break our bad habits. Sometimes we actually change them and it's a true moment of self celebration. More often than not, however, we find our habits too difficult to alter, despite our best intentions. Does this make us bad people? No. Habits are habits for a reason—they are extremely difficult to change. Some are so ingrained in ourselves, our souls, that they have almost become involuntary.

Accepting our habits, for better or worse, is something we all must come to terms with at some point in our lives. Wanting to change our bad habits and turn them into positive ones is honorable. Realizing that these habits make us who we are, the big and the small, the significant or insignificant, may be the most important revelation of all.

Cinnamon Sugar Cake with Brown Sugar Cinnamon Buttercream Cinnamon Sugar Cake with Brown Sugar Cinnamon Buttercream

This Cinnamon Sugar Cake is frosted with a sweet Brown Sugar Cinnamon Buttercream. The cake is made with sour cream, which lends a moist texture to the final product, but the cake itself is not very sweet. The brown sugar buttercream, however, is the perfect complement to the cinnamon sugar cake. The brown sugar addition gives the buttercream a slight grit, which is reminiscent of a warm piece of cinnamon sugar toast. This cake is an everyday cake to sweeten up your daily moments.

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