Cookie Sampler Christmas Gifts

We delivered our neighbor gifts last night. It was fun to do all together as a family and I am sooo grateful to be able to check this off my list!

Instead of having the oven going all day, I had the freezer working overtime for some ready to bake cookie samplers.

Kind of like the frozen cookie logs but the dough is already formed and ready to go.

I made double batches of four different kinds of cookies:

Peanut Butter Cookies
Double Dark Chocolate Pomegranate {from MADE – these are a chocolate lover’s dream!}
Snicker Doodles
Chewy Gingersnaps

I balled them up…

For the peanut butter cookies I also cross-hatched them, and for the Snickerdoodles I lightly pressed them slightly flat with the bottom of a cup, BEFORE freezing.

Then I froze them on a wax paper lined cookie sheet for about an hour, before transferring them to a freezer zip-loc bag.

It is really ideal to freeze them for 2-3 hours before bagging them, but I didn’t have that kind of time. One hour worked fine as long as I put the bags right back in the freezer until we were ready to box them and deliver them.

I made sure there was a mix of a dozen cookies per bag; and I used a smaller sandwich bag to separate the sugar coated ones from the non-sugared ones.

While I waited on the cookie dough to freeze, I folded up some origami gift boxes out of 12×12 scrapbook paper. I use and love this tutorial from Lorajean’s Magazine all the time!

I have a large stash of paper I never use. Most of it is not really that pretty, but when you fold it up into a useful box it takes on new life.

I was able to whittle my stash down quite a bit and I didn’t have to spend a dime.

The boxes make for a neat, compact package our neighbors can easily slip into their freezer until they are ready to enjoy them.

Then I slipped the freezer bag of cookies in…

with this note.

It gives freezing instructions: frozen cookies will last for about one month.

And adjusted baking instructions: 325 degrees F, for about 12-17 minutes depending on your oven. Because the dough is frozen you want to bake it at a lower temperature for longer. But you don’t have to let it thaw. Just pull it out and bake!

The only thing I forgot to include in our note was what kind of cookies we put in. Whoops. Maybe I should call it the surprise cookie sampler. 🙂

I have to admit…this project created a sugar explosion in our kitchen. My Kitchen Aid was a terrible mess and the floor was sandy with little white sticky granules. The one upside to it though, is that I only made one big mess that I had to clean up just once. All the ingredients only had to be hauled out once, etc. etc.

And now we have a bunch of frozen cookies left over that I plan on using Christmas Eve night, to bake for Santa.

Fresh baked cookies without anymore work, mess and dishes? Beautiful.