Freezing Baked Treats- Experiences?
 

I want to start Christmas baking. We have a ton to bake, and I know from experience I won't get it all done if I wait until the last two weeks of December.

Have any of you frozen baked goods with great success?

Here is what I am wanting to make and freeze:

• White chocolate cheesecake bars (same recipe as my white chocolate cheesecake, but with oreo crust and in bar form)
  • sugar cookies to decorate later

• M&M cookie bars
• cupcakes, not iced
• gingerbread bars with cream cheese icing- iced or not?
• Biscotti
• various chocolate or white chocolate dipped cookies
• cranberry bread

What else can be frozen? I have found in my experience that drop cookie dough does not freeze well, although it is supposed to be fine.
Has anyone ever frozen Biscotti? I was wondering at what stage it should be frozen. I am wondering if it would lose its crispness if frozen. The reason I am including that and the dipped cookies on this list is because they are more involved, and so I might not get to them. I will freeze the cookies undipped and then dip them while they are frozen. But, how long can they sit to be eaten after thawed and dipped? Will the chocolate get weird?
Also, what about cupcakes? Would the papers get all soggy?
We used to freeze sugar cookies at the bakery all the time, so I know those will be OK.

Obviously, cranberry bread is good to freeze.

Any tips? The lull before Thanksgiving is really the best time for me to bake.

Re: Freezing Baked Treats- Experiences?
 

I do not find that cookies freeze well, however balls of ready-to-bake cookie dough freeze excellently! Any chance of getting it ready to bake, freezing, and then thawing it to bake?

Re: Freezing Baked Treats- Experiences?
 

Not the OP, but what do you mean by "getting ready to bake"? Do you put the dough in cookie size portions and freeze like that? Like balls? Or flattened pre-bake dough cookies? Or a roll of dough that you slice (like they sell in the store)? Or other?

I'm intrigued. We do a lot of homemade cookies here, and like to cook in small batches (so we don't have a lot at one time). The idea of making a huger batch of dough and freezing and just pulling from the freezer to bake a few at a time is brilliant.

(sorry, not the OP nor related to Christmas baking... Though if I get good at it maybe I'd do more Christmas baking. :lol )

Re: Freezing Baked Treats- Experiences?
 

Drop cookies (like chocolate chip, oatmeal, etc) do ok frozen in balls and thawed to bake. I have one cookie that requires rolling in balls, and then logs, then baking and dipping, that I sometimes freeze at the ball stage.
I have tried freezing the peanut butter blossoms at ball stage and that didn't go so well. They just tasted odd. I have another that fits rolled into a ball, then pressed into sugar. Those are ok at ball stage to freeze, so I might do those.

I have found that a lot of cookies brown unevenly after the dough has been frozen. I don't know why.

Any idea about the cheesecake?

Re: Freezing Baked Treats- Experiences?
 

I make the dough and then use my little dough scoop to place dough balls on a wax-paper covered tray in the freezer. I put them right next to each other- not leaving room like when you cook cookies. Then when they are frozen I take them out and put them right next to each other in a plastic gallon ziploc. I close it most of the way and then use a straw to suck out all the extra air. Then it is sort-of vacuum sealed and I will stack bags on top of each other. Each bag contains one flat layer of cookies. Then when I want some cookies, I take however many out that I want, put them on a baking sheet, and bake at 350 from frozen and they turn out fine.

Re: Freezing Baked Treats- Experiences?
 

Freeze the frostings and icings separately. I freeze cream cheese frosting and buttercreams routinely; just make sure to thaw thoroughly before use.

Any quick bread is fine. Off hand I can't think of any that have been problematic for me.

If your M&M cookies are similar to a chocolate chip cookie dough, they'll work, too.

Cupcakes are great to freeze. I've not had a problem with the papers. If they're going to get yucky, it's usually in the cooling process when they sometimes peel off the cupcake.

Biscotti typically freezes well. I favor Rocco DiSpirito's recipe at Food Network as a base - it's made with olive oil, not butter, so that may make a difference. It has THE PERFECT dunking texture! I have some GF pumpkin biscotti in the freezer right now. If you can wait til tomorrow, I can report on that recipe! :giggle

Cheesecake - let's see. I used to make mini cheesecakes in muffin tins and freeze those. They usually turned out fine, unless I left them in the freezer too long and they got freezer burn. Let thaw slowly and completely. There might be a little loss of texture, nothing a fresh topping won't fix!

I usually freeze the dough or batter and bake things off as I need them. Every year I have three or four doughs in the freezer. Anything like snickerdoodles, rolled sugar cookies, candy cane twists, Italian sesame, keep in the freezer nicely. Danish and croissant doughs freeze beautifully. Take them out the night before you want to use and thaw in the fridge. You can bake off the next day.

I freeze my mom's fig cookies baked but not frosted. She makes a brown sugar rolled cut-out cookie every year

I can't say for sure on the dipped cookies. Usually that kind of thing works out well, but it depends on the base cookie.

---------- Post added at 08:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:50 PM ----------

I don't portion the dough, just put it in a zip-loc bag, press out all the air. I think it's the exposure to air that alters the dough enough to not bake well.

Re: Freezing Baked Treats- Experiences?
 

Biscotti should keep really well without freezing, shouldn't they? They seem to keep forever. I imagine they'd freeze really well, though.

Re: Freezing Baked Treats- Experiences?
 

Parchment paper cup cake liners freeze wonderfully well.

(There have been sessions of like that I always had frozen cupcakes that I could pop out if the girls got invited to birthday parties.)

I think that biscotti would be fine to just bake now and keep for a month.

I have also frozen biscotti after the first baking and cutting and then pulled them out of the freezer and done the second baking.

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Re: Freezing Baked Treats- Experiences?
 

Is the cranberry bread with yeast of baking soda/powder? Yeast breads freeze well, but quick breads are better made fresh (although you can premix your dry ingredients and store in a ziplock bag in the fridge until needed).

Everything else would freeze well between layers of parchment or waxed paper. I might not bother freezing biscotti though.

Re: Freezing Baked Treats- Experiences?
 

I don't find this to be true. In fact, I might do the opposite - freeze the yeast dough and the baked quick breads. I bake an awful lot and utilize my freezer pretty extensively in order to host buffets. At any one time there is often Danish dough (a laminated, enriched yeast dough similar to croissants), multiple pie crusts and a cookie dough or two on hand to use. Most quick breads do just fine in the freezer. Aim to use them in 3-4 months, but on occasion I've pulled a pumpkin gingerbread, zucchini bread, or the like from the back of the deep freezer a year later and my family was none the wiser.

Re: Freezing Baked Treats- Experiences?
 

Just dreaming about living at your house.

Your family is SOOOO blessed. :heart

Re: Freezing Baked Treats- Experiences?
 

Aaw, :melting You're very kind, EC!

I AM a bit nutty, though. :giggle