In elementary school I was tasked with selling cookie dough as part of a school fundraiser. Buckets of processed and frozen balls of batter were sold to our families in an effort to raise money for the classroom, and I easily recall the overwhelmingly positive reaction to such a simple product.
Today, I'm rarely without those frozen batter balls in my own freezer, only now I make the cookie dough myself, which is about the easiest thing I do in my kitchen next to shaking up a few jam jars worth of salad dressing every Sunday to see us through the week. The process is pretty simple: make a variety of favourite doughs, portion the cookies onto a lined baking sheet or tray (I like to use a 1.5 tablespoon-sized ice cream scoop) and pop them in the freezer for a few hours. Once completely hard, transfer the balls to a freezer-safe bag, which leaves you with several dozen cookies ready for baking, entertaining, and gift giving, if needed.
There are many reasons why you might want to fill your freezer with small, unbaked cookie dough rounds, but the best one I can think of is simple: who doesn’t love a warm chocolate chip cookie when served fresh from the oven? Sure, you can bake off a batch of cookies and store the remainders in a lidded container for several days, and you can certainly freeze the uneaten leftovers until you need them, but baking them fresh just before eating is infinitely better. Trust me.
If you tuck a few different varieties in your freezer you’ll have plenty of options to choose from. It’s easy to get carried away, but I keep it simple by making two or three crowd-pleasing flavours like chocolate chip, chocolate white chocolate chip, and oatmeal; why make things more complicated than they need to be?
In addition to using the cookies for quick and easy ice cream sandwiches - an essential dessert for easy entertaining, if you ask me - there are plenty of other reasons to pack your freezer with baggies of dough balls:
- After school and lunchbox snacks for the kids or anyone who brown bags their midday meal.
- Treats for guests.
- Edible gifts for new parents (a huge hit), neighbours, students away at college, elderly family members, etc. (just pack frozen cookies in a baggies, jar or tin and include baking directions).
- Dessert when friends come over for dinner – who doesn’t love a warm chocolate chip cookie fresh from the oven? Set up with small containers of gourmet ice cream for a simple self-serve dessert station
- Dip the balls into melted chocolate to make cookie dough candy bites.
Cookie recipes to try:
Chocolate white chocolate chunk cookies
Simply genius.
Posted by: Amy @ Family Feedbag | 03/18/2014 at 05:22 PM
Thanks, friend!
Posted by: Jan Scott | 03/19/2014 at 10:23 AM