My Secret Tips for Time Saving Holiday Baking

In My Secret Tips for Time Saving Holiday Baking I share my secrets on how I create delicious cookies & save time during the holiday season while baking for all of my friends & family.

Thank you Hefty for sponsoring today’s post & showing how to make the holidays a little less chaotic!
      

 

The following are a few of my favorite time saving holiday baking tips & tricks! There are so many additional great baking tips available that you can adopt into your seasonal baking to make the holidays a little less work & a lot more fun!

The second Christmas after Roger & I started dating I decided to make baked goods for his whole family as my Christmas gift to them. I was a freshman in college living at home (the university was literally 5 minutes away from my home) with very little money & all of the ingredients readily available in the cupboards of my parent’s kitchen. So I decided this was a great idea! 

The plan was to make Christmas goodies for his whole family, sealed in pretty decorated Christmas bags, and then place them in a large gift bag. This seemed like a great idea at the time, however, once I started baking I realized that I had gotten in over my head.

Roger does not have a little family. At the time, 3 of his 4 siblings were married with growing families of their own. I planned to make a variety of Christmas treats for each family with twice as many for his parents, since the whole family would be over at their house for Christmas.

 

 

The problem was that since I was still living in my parent’s home I hadn’t developed any baking tips & tricks yet. However, my mom did have one that my sister & I have both adopted when we make cookies in big batches.

Roll each cookie ball in sugar before freezing.
    

While many people already roll cookie dough into balls & place them in the freezer to harden before placing in Hefty freezer bags for later use, we like to roll each individual cookie ball in sugar before placing it on a baking sheet for freezing. Not only does it make your cookies extra sweet (every sweet tooth’s dream), but the sugar looks really pretty when it bakes on top.

 

 

Even though baking an abundance of Christmas goodies was difficult my first time, over the years I have developed not only my own go to cookie recipe, but even a few time saving tricks that make creating a variety of different cookies during the holiday season quick & easy.

And I must admit, this might be one of my favorite tips for making an abundance of cookies.

Create a double, triple or even quadruple batch of cookies, divide it up,
then add different flavors before baking or freezing.
   

For example, my favorite go-to recipe is my Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe, however, it’s not very festive for Christmas. So an easy way to adjust it for the season is to make a double batch (minus the chocolate chips), split it into 2-4 bowls evenly, then stir in a different topping(s) to each bowl. Sometimes I do white chocolate & cranberries, or peppermint white chocolate chips, or even butterscotch & dark chocolate.

The combinations are infinite! 

 

 

Then you roll them, freeze them (with or without the sugar), store them in Hefty gallon sized freezer bags, & they are ready to bake anytime you want!

This is great because you could do all of your holiday baking prep work this week & then just do the baking part whenever you need cookies this holiday season, without making a mess in your kitchen during the busiest time of the year!

 

Photo via Hefty

 

And if you are looking for a fun way to dress up your Hefty freezer storage bags here are a few free holiday treat bag topper printables Hefty created just for you, I especially love the snowflakes!

Click here to get some for yourself!

 

 

I’d love to here about your freezing tips & see how you use Hefty’s Gallon sized Freezer Bags this holiday season! I’d also love to hear which Hefty printable treat bag topper is your favorite in the comments below!

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With love, G

I desire to do your will, my God;
your law is within my heart.
Psalms 40:8

 

 

 

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More Christmas posts from Domestically Blissful

    

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Affiliate links included in this post.

This post is sponsored by Hefty but the content & opinions expressed here are my own.