Prep your holiday baking in advance with a slice and bake sugar cookies recipe. Use it to shape into your favorite cookie design, like these chocolate pinwheel cookies and stored in the freezer. Bake a fresh batch of cookies from the frozen cookie dough, all season long.
Holiday baking in advance
Planning to start your holiday baking early? Need something to bring to a cookie swap? Or maybe you want to have a last minute dessert option easily on hand?
Then this vanilla sugar cookie dough recipe, with a chocolate mix in option is for you. This dough can easily be prepared in advance and stored in the refrigerator, until ready to shape, or the freezer, until ready to bake.
Frozen Slice and Bake Cookies
This frozen cookie dough can be shaped into cookies with a fun design and baked right away. Better yet, use it to get a head start on your holiday baking. Form the dough into a log and store it in the freezer. Then when needed, slice & bake a fresh cookie….or two. Make as many as you need. Making it a great option to keep an extra log in the freezer for the unexpected holiday guests. Need a present? Prepare a batch to gift or share the whole log so others can bake their own fresh cookies for a sweet DIY present.
Ingredients
flours – both all-purpose and white whole wheat flours
baking powder & fine sea salt
softened butter, sugar and an egg
vanilla extract or paste & cocoa powder – to flavor these swirl cookies
Slice and Bake Holiday Cookies
Use this dough to create cookies with unique designs, like these Chanukah cookies with a chocolate menorah inside. Any leftover dough—or all of it— can be re-rolled to create these classic chocolate and vanilla pinwheel cookies.
Holiday Pinwheel Cookies
Making pinwheel cookies is easy. All you need is two different colors of dough. In this case, it’s chocolate & vanilla. If you only had vanilla dough, you could mix in some food coloring or add a layer of sprinkles or colored sugar to the top of the dough before rolling it up into a log.
Since the size and thickness of the cookie can vary, this cookie can be made with different amounts of dough. Use the recipe below to make a full batch of pinwheel cookies or gather leftover cookie scraps to make a smaller amount.
Shaping into Pinwheels
Simply use a rolling pin to roll out each of the pieces of the chocolate and vanilla dough. Work between two pieces of plastic wrap to prevent the dough from sticking. You can make the layers as thin or thick as you want. Trim both pieces so that they are roughly the same size. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate until firm, 15-20 minutes. Remove plastic wrap and gently place one color on top of the other. Start and one end and roll both layers into a log, jelly roll style. Wrap the log tightly in plastic wrap as well as aluminum foil or a freezer bag. Store in the freezer until ready to slice and bake.
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Frozen Cookie Dough
Bake your holiday cookies in advance with this frozen cookie dough recipe. Slice & bake cookies as needed, straight from the freezer, this holiday season.
Ingredients
- 1 cup (120 grams) all-purpose flour
- ½ cup (60 grams) white whole wheat flour
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
- 4 ounces butter, softened
- ½ cup (109 grams) sugar
- 1 egg
- 1¼ teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 tablespoons (9 grams) cocoa powder
Instructions
Cookie Dough
Combine the flours, baking powder and salt in a small bowl.
In a large mixing bowl, use a wooden spoon to cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy. Stir in egg and vanilla. Add the flour mixture and continue mixing until dough forms.
Remove ⅓ cup dough back into the small empty bowl. Mix in the cocoa until all of the powder is incorporated.
Shaping into Cookies
Use this dough to create your own unique cookie design (with a cookie cutter or not).
The dough can be shaped immediately, or wrapped in plastic wrap and refrigerated for up to 24 hours.
Baking Instructions
Cut ¼ inch slices from the log. Place onto a parchment lined baking sheet.
Bake in a preheated 350° oven for 10-15 minutes until edges begin to turn a golden brown.
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