Have you ever bit into a gingerbread cookie or what should be a fresh sugar cookie only to find it soggy?
Now that it's cookie season, we need to talk about the #1 rule of cookie storage: Never store your crunchy cookies and chewy cookies together.
Why? It's like a form of osmosis: the fresh cookies will absorb the moisture in the chewy cookies, softening their texture and losing their snap. Meanwhile, the chewy cookies will dry out, losing their characteristic softness. Avoid this by keeping cookies with similar textures together: crispy ginger AND crispy shortbread in a container, and dry chocolate chip cookies AND chewy sugar cookies in another, etc. (On the same note, you should also keep strongly flavored cookies separate so their flavors don't bleed into each other: You don't want gingerbread cookies enjoying like slice-and-bake mint!)
This means that if you are sending cookies of different textures and/or flavors and using a container, put them in cellophane bags first to keep them separate and in good shape.
Photography by Patrick Marinello; food styling by Yekaterina Boytsova
About that container: An old-fashioned cookie jar is nostalgic, but not the best container for keeping cookies optimally fresh. Instead, choose an airtight container like this one Prokeeper+ Cookie Storage Containerwhich has a strong silicone seal to seal in freshness. And if you're using it to store soft cookies, it comes with a terra cotta insert, which adds moisture to help cookies keep their chewy texture longer. (Like one brown sugar preservative!)
An additional tip to keep soft cookies soft
One more tip to keep the cookies softer so they don't lose their chewiness? Consider adding a slice of white bread to the cookie storage container. Similar to the terra cotta stone that comes with our cookie storage container, the bread slice provides moisture that creates a moist environment in the container; that excess moisture is then absorbed by the cookies to keep them from drying out and becoming hard.
Ready to bake? we have 46 classic holiday and Christmas cookies to bake this year.
Prokeeper+ Cookie Storage Container
142 Assessments hearing
$22.95
Cover photo (Earl Gray Cookies) by Patrick Marinello; food styling by Yekaterina Boytsova.
