Few desserts can compare with the deliciousness of homemade cookies. The buttery, rich flavor and soft but crispy texture of freshly baked cookies are simply divine; the cookie aroma alone evokes childhood memories, creating a cozy and inviting atmosphere in the home.
But there’s one perennial issue with cookies…
Preserving all those delectable qualities of fresh cookies is not so easy, so much so that many recipes will advise that you only bake as many cookies as you can eat and freeze the rest of the dough. Well, we tried that, and while this approach certainly works, it creates a series of messes in the kitchen and requires that you spend at least 20-30 minutes prepping, baking, and cleaning up every time you’re craving cookies. And that's not ideal, to say the least.
So, what should you do if you want to preserve the freshness of leftover cookies, or make enough batches of cookies to last you a few days? We’re happy to share with you a truly easy solution.
For this trick, you’ll need a sturdy, airtight food container (or sealable bag) to fit all your cookies and a slice of bread. In order to understand how this trick works, you’ll need to understand why cookies taste stale and hard. To put it simply, cookies simply dry out. This moisture loss happens when you leave cookies on the counter, but it’s going to occur even faster in the dry, cold environment in the fridge.
This is where a slice of bread can be really helpful. Fresh bread essentially acts as a sponge: it contains quite a lot of moisture itself, but it’s able to pull moisture from the air too. When the bread sits near the quick-drying cookies, it will share moisture with the baked goods, leaving them as soft and buttery as they were when they first came out of the oven.
Make sure to use a good airtight container or a resealable bag to store the cookies. Air exposure will make your cookies stale, so this trick doesn’t work without a sealable box or bag. As for the bread itself, stale bread works for this trick too, but it’s better to use fresh white bread, as it has a neutral taste and a bit more moisture.
How long can you expect your cookies to last? This will depend on your container, but you can expect them to stay fresh for around a week (even though, in my experience, cookies are gone long before the weekly mark).
Try this trick the next time you have some leftover cookies, we’re convinced that it will work just perfectly! And if all this cookie talk got you in the mood for baking, we share 4 delicious cookie recipes with you below:
H/T: Mental Floss
