Simplify Your Holiday Cookie Baking With This Make-Ahead Tip

December is the month of endless cookies. Cookie exchanges, holiday parties, and the actual days of celebration all call for a large amount of festive cookies. What's not endless, though, is the amount of time you have every day to bake said number of cookies. Grocery shopping, preparing the dough, shaping the balls, and baking the cookies in batches can quickly add up to hours in the kitchen. 

Luckily, Anna Gordon — chef, founder, and co-owner of The Good Batch, a bakery in Brooklyn, New York — gave us her top tip to streamline the process, saving you precious time this busy holiday season. To simplify your holiday cookie baking, Gordon suggests making your cookie dough ahead of time and freezing it.

"Preparing large batches of cookies ahead of the holiday rush is a great idea," the cookie connoisseur says. You can actually freeze most types of cookie dough for up to three months. Gordon suggests making the dough, "scooping and freezing individual cookies, then freezing the dough like that." This way, you'll have even less work when the time comes to bake them, as the cookies are already individually shaped. It also lets you make dough in bulk and only bake the exact number of cookies you need at any given time.

Many of the classic holiday cookies turn out perfectly even after being frozen for weeks. Gingerbread cookie dough can be made, rolled out and cut into shapes, and the unbaked shapes freeze perfectly. When you're ready to eat them, the ideal temperature to bake gingerbread cookies is 325 degrees Fahrenheit; baking the cookies from frozen just means they'll need a few extra minutes in the oven. You can use the same method for shaped sugar-cookie dough.

For scoop-and-roll doughs like chocolate chip and snickerdoodle, just do the scooping and rolling before popping the balls into the freezer (it's much harder to scoop frozen dough). Shortbread is easy to bake and easy to freeze, too; try Christmas shortbread cookies or millionaire's shortbread this holiday season. Once baked, keep your cookies fresh by letting them cool completely and storing them in an airtight container; add a tortilla in with them to absorb moisture and prevent them from getting stale.