Happy Friday: Easy Tip to Keep Cookies Fresh
Sent from reader, Emily:
I know that this isn’t your traditional Hip Tip, but this one is about keeping cookies fresh! I recently made cookies and had my mom over today. She tried a cookie and told me that my bread was doing its job. That’s when I realized that a lot of people do not know this tip —> if you put a slice of bread in with your stored cookies, they will stay soft. I have mine in Ziploc bags and I put a slice of bread in each bag. A week later, they are still as soft as the day I made them. The bread will get rock hard but your cookies stay soft and delicious. You can swap out the bread for a new slice when you feel like it is no longer doing its job. If your cookies have already started to get hard, this tip can bring some of the softness back as well.
HAPPY FRIDAY!
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Wow definitely did not know this. Thanks for this info!
Neat trick!!! Thanks for sharing 🙂
Your cookies look great too!
wouldn’t the bread get mold ?
I’m wondering the same thing… Especially if you put it in brown sugar…
My mother-in-law does this and I find that the cookies taste like bread.
They do. I notice a bit of a flavor transfer when cookie varieties are mixed like they are in the pic above, too. The sugar cookies will take on a bit of “chocolate essence” from the kiss. I usually package a single variety of cookies together and freeze them to keep them fresh.
Yes, always freeze and pull as needed.
The moisture from the bread is absorbed by the cookies or brown sugar. Mold needs a moist environment to grow, which is why crackers (or in this case really dry bread) don’t really grow mold.
no, because there is no moisture in the bread to grow mold. the bread is hardened up like a piece of dry toast. there is way less moisture int he bread after adding it to the cookies than there is when you originally remove it from the bread package.
Been doing this my entire life and have never had anything mold. Even after a week. It gets way hard and I put a new slice in. No mold. Ever.
This is my tip and I have I have never had mold grow in the bags or cookie containers that I put them in. I have also never noticed any taste difference when I use the bread.
It works in brown sugar too!
Great tip!
Thanks for sharing. I had no idea.
I do this for Brown sugar and cookies…works great!
Yes, this works wonders! I’ve been doing this my whole life thanks to my grandmother.
My mom always did the bread slice for cookies!
I do this in brown sugar as well…never thought about doing it in cookies
That is cool. Thanks for sharing!!
You can also just eat them all then keeping them fresh isnt an issue! Wa-laa lol
😂
Cookies never last long enough in our house for this trick 😂
Right! My immediate thoughts as well 😂
Too bad it doesn’t also work for a loaf of bread! LOL!
Wouldn’t that be great, lol!
You can also do this with brown sugar. It will turn it soft again!
Wow, thanks for the tip!
Thank you!
Has anyone tried this trick with shortbread cookies? I love my short bread cookies to be crunchy and am afraid that if I put a slice of bread in the cookie jar, my cookies might turn out soft later. Any idea of this? Thank you!
If you want your shortbread to stay crisp, don’t add bread (or apple, or marshmallows, or anything else to draw out or infuse moisture). You’re better off freezing it. Not only does freezing them keep cookies fresh (crispy ones stay crispy and soft ones stay soft–if you allow them to thaw before eating), but they taste even better for some reason. My college roommate’s father used to send her cookies all the time, and she kept them in the freezer. They were always amazing right from the freezer, though you could let them thaw, too. My husband started doing this again recently, though maybe it’s more to keep the kids out of the cookies. 😉
I need to do this to keep ME out of the cookies 😔
Doesn’t work if you know they’re there! (And if you know how delicious frozen cookies are!) 🙂
Wow! Thanks for this cool hip tip!
This also works with a slice of apple–the cookies draw the moisture out of the apple, keeping them soft.
A whole apple? Or slices?
A slice in each package/container of cookies. Just replace as the apple slices shrivel up. Note: neither bread nor apple slices keep cookies *fresh*; they only keep them soft. I prefer freezing cookies, which keeps them fresh and soft (or crispy, depending on the cookie variety).
Great tip!! Thank u!! I do this (put either a slice of bread or a large marshmallow) in the container with my brown sugar to keep my brown sugar from getting hard as a rock… but I never thought of doing this to keep cookies soft!! Great idea!! Thanks!!
This is the same reason why you can’t mix soft baked package cookies with harder varieties. The soft ones become hard and the hard ones become soft! Lol
Bread also helps if you accidentally over-bake your cookies and they’re a little hard. The bread will soften them up, but I try to keep the bread from touching the cookies or at least from laying directly on one if I can, because where it touches a cookie will get too soft.
Exactly what I do too. If they get too hard I do this then they are perfect by morning. And agree on. It letting them touch. I put a piece of wax paper over the slices then layer in my cookies on top of the wax paper.
If you add a teaspoon of corn syrup to your dough your cookies will stay soft and not taste like bread.
They also make these little dandies for ppl like me who don’t always have bread on hand, or want that “bread” taste (or crumbs) to transfer to whatever I’m softening. $3.99 add-on item on Amazon. You just soak the bear (made of Terra cotta) in water first, dry it off a bit, and place into a container with whatever you want to soften. You can also bake the bear, and put it into a container to draw moisture out of something. Magic! 😉
Brown Sugar Bear Original Brown Sugar Saver and Softener, Terracotta https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000MT65BC/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_apa_zxgCybNMJRDD2
Wow! I have a couple of these and I had no idea there are so many uses beyond brown sugar. I knew about hte bread and apple tricks but never thought about using these for anything other than brown sugar! Thanks so much!
Here is a cute cookie story….,,My dad’s favorite cookies are peanut butter. My mom is always on a diet and has trouble with sweets. So my dad knew my mom doesn’t like watermelon. He put a container of PB cookies in the deep freezer with the tag watermelon in it. (??like who freezes watermelon, right?!?). My dad got away with sneaking down to get a cookie, for s month or two until my mom decided to clean out old food from freezer. She saw watermelon and thought what the….She discovered my dad’s stash. 2 years later we still giggle and laugh..
I have since done the same thing when I have gotten good deals on oreos and candy. I placed them in a cardboard box with the word “meat” on it.
That’s clever and hilarious!
I do this every single time I make cookies just did it today in fact. Sometimes when I gift cookies I forget to tell the person and I always laugh wondering what they think when they see the bread! Oh and I took cookies to work one day and when I went to grab the empty container at the end of the day I noticed one of the pieces of bread had a bite out of it! Lol. That was like 5-6 yrs ago and I still laugh to this day wondering g who did it, why they put it back after they took a bite and what they thought of my “cookies”!! Lol.
Have always done this. It works great!
This does work, I learned it from my grandpa, but for some reason his cookies didn’t taste like the bread, mine do. And unfortunately it is far, far too late to ask what he did differently. So Instead I prefer to freeze cookie dough and just bake what I want. Then I can easily have a fresh cookie, but it also tastes fresh. =)
He probably didn’t do anything differently. Taste buds change over time. Most kids are going register sugar rather than the bread flavor.
Nice! I didn’t know this tip. Thanks for sharing
Who has cookies last longer than two days? Oh wait, maybe it’s just my house that eats them all up that quickly. lol
I’ve done this too. Works great! Even works if you don’t add the bread in right Away after you package them. Another time that’s good to add the bread is if you buy in a container but the lid didn’t close right and they are almost “stale”, the bread will bring them back to the right texture. Also great if you slightly overbake them. I also put the bread on a piece of parchment paper in the container so that it’s not laying directly on any of the cookies.
Great tip!
My Mom used to do this. The cookies stayed soft but it affected the taste of the cookies. Wasn’t worth it. A better idea is just to freeze them and take them out as needed.
This is how I have sent cookies to my favorite soldier and now airman for years. I include a note instructing the recipient to snag a fresh slice of bread from the mess hall to soften any hard cookies.
Does anyone have a good recipe for sugar cookies or cookies that will keep the shape of the cutting forms while backing and after??? And be able to decorate with icing? I would like to make some for my daughter’s bday (ice skates & snow flakes) … unfortunately, what I did for Christmas was a mess 😩 HELP!!!
Thank you!!!