How to have a couple of warm, homemade cookies whenever you want
Warm cookies right out of the oven makes one's mouth water. It's hard to hold back and let them cool before you lift one up to your mouth.The scent of buttery sugar fills the kitchen leaving you craving for a soft, melt-in-your-mouth chocolate chip cookie. Cookies, like other baked goods, are best freshly made and enjoyed within a day or two, but how can you eat 24 cookies yourself (without guilt)?
The person cooking for one usually needs to bake up an entire batch of cookies from a recipe, and somehow need to resist chowing down on them in one sitting. Just try to say no to that fourth cookie as it fragrantly cools on the countertop!
Here's how you can have a couple of fresh cookies whenever you heed the call.
This technique for the person cooking for one works best for drop cookies (made from dropping tablespoon-sized nuggets of dough on a baking sheet). It can also work for sliced cookies too (made from rolling the dough into a log and slicing off rounds).
1. Choose your favorite cookie recipe for drop or sliced cookies: chocolate chip, oatmeal, sugar, ginger, and snickerdoodles are good examples. Make the cookie dough according to the recipe, but don't bake the dough.
2. Place a sheet of waxed or parchment paper on a baking sheet. Clear a relatively level area in your freezer where you can slide in the baking sheet. Get a large plastic freezer bag and label it with the type of cookie, today's date, and the recommended baking temperature and time.
3. If the cookie dough is for drop cookies, break off pieces of dough and roll in your hands into the recommended size. Place the dough balls on the prepared cookie sheet. It is very important that the dough balls do not touch. They can fit snuggly onto one sheet, but no touching - just like pesky siblings. If the dough is for sliced cookies, roll the dough into a log as instructed and slice the dough into small rounds. Lay the rounds on the prepared baking sheet, but don't let them touch each other.
4. Place the baking sheet in the freezer. Allow the cookie dough to freeze completely solid. Take the sheet out of the freezer. Open up the freezer bag. The forzen dough should just lift right off the waxed or parchment paper. Gently toss in the frozen cookie dough into the bag, seal the bag, and place it in the freezer.
Now on a whim, you can indulge in a freshly baked cookie. It is so impressive when friends stop by, and all you have to do is pop a few in the oven for a few minutes. Serve with ice cold milk, and the cookies will vanish behind your friends' smiles.
If you don't want to turn on the oven for a couple of cookies, you can use a toaster oven. I have tested baking a few chocolate chip cookies in a toaster oven, and they will bake reasonably well. Line the toaster oven tray with aluminum foil.
Please note that since you are baking only a few cookies at a time, the baking time in an traditional oven may be much shorter than indicated on the original recipe. Keep an eye on the cookies the first time you bake them, and they will quickly reveal to you the adjusted baking time. Besides, why wait longer for fresh, homemade cookies than you have to, right?
Reader Comments (3)
Subject of your post is very interesting.I 'd love to read more.Please make the next post here, i 'll be waiting for that.
http://www.mydish.co.uk/
Woohoo! I just stumbled across your blog for the first time. Really looking forward to following your cooking adventures.
Thank you for your comments. I will be having more information later.
- Keith