Cookie Storage Tips to Ensure Your Sweets Survive Holiday Travels Without Crumbling | Reviews by Wirecutter

By Maki Yazawa

Maki Yazawa is a writer focused on making cooking fun. She once cooked for Natalie Portman, and her friends won't let her forget it.

After spending hours in baking mode, prepping holiday cookies for shipping (if you’re sharing them with family and friends) or storing (if you’re hoarding them for yourself) might be an afterthought. However, we’d argue that ensuring your holiday cookies arrive at their destination safely and stay fresh is just as important as all the steps you took in making them.

To help you make the most of holiday baking season, we tapped into the extensive cookie-making experience of the NYT Cooking team—who just launched their fifth annual Cookie Week—and the folks in Wirecutter’s test kitchen to bring you helpful cookie-storage tips so your treasured creations stay as unblemished and pristine as a freshly baked batch, whether they’re enduring the woes of holiday travel or staying put at home.

Although specialty cookie tins add a festive touch, many staffers say functionality is more important.

Vaughn Vreeland, a supervising video producer for NYT Cooking (and creator of the Rum-Buttered Almond Cookies recipe), says you don’t need anything too fancy—an airtight quart container or takeout container will do. “They’re stackable, the cookies fit really well, and usually don’t run the risk of smushing each other,” he explains.

Emily Fleischaker, the deputy editor of NYT Cooking, also uses those containers and lines them with paper towels to help reduce moisture. Gabriella Gershenson, an editor on Wirecutter’s kitchen team, says you can also slip in a food-grade silica packet to help keep crispy cookies crisp.

If you’re hand-delivering cookies, NYT Cooking senior editor Genevieve Ko uses clear gift bags and ties them tightly with red and white baker’s twine. “It’s the least expensive of the packaging options, but it looks really nice,” she says. “Ordinary baker’s twine just happens to have a festive color scheme.”

Staffers agree that resealable plastic bags don’t offer much protection and can make cookies vulnerable to squishing and smashing. Although some of us may use them from time to time, they aren’t our favorite cookie-storage option.

Many Wirecutter kitchen-team staffers swear by this trick. They say that packing cookies—whether for shipping or storing—with a few scraps of leftover bread can help maintain their freshness. “The added moisture from the bread creates a humid environment, keeping the cookies from drying out too quickly,” says Wirecutter senior staff writer Michael Sullivan.

Although adding bread effectively maintains moisture levels for soft, supple treats such as sugar cookies and snickerdoodles, Michael doesn’t recommend using this method on “crisp icebox cookies or biscotti, since the added moisture will make them soft,” he explains. He also advises against using flavorful bread varieties, such as banana or rosemary bread, because “the flavor could transfer to your cookies.” Michael says that this method keeps cookies moist for about a week, though he recommends replacing the bread slices after a few days to keep the moisture levels steady.

Wirecutter kitchen-team updates writer Abigail Bailey recommends saving and freezing heels from loaves of white bread before the holidays. Just be sure to defrost the pieces before packaging them with cookies. She says this can be an effective way to cut back on food waste and avoid having to buy extra bread exclusively to stash cookies. Abigail also splits the heels in half, which she says is enough bread to keep soft chocolate chip cookies nice and tender.

But if you’re packing just a small quantity of cookies, one or two, Abigail says to skip the bread method altogether. “It might add too much moisture,” she cautions.

If your cookies have a long journey ahead, packing them with a buffer to absorb a bit of impact can help them arrive at their final destination in one piece.

Paper goods, such as tissue paper, will do, which is why Krysten Chambrot, an assistant editor for NYT Cooking, swears by using leftover gift supplies to package cookies. “I always keep windowed gift boxes on hand for gifting baked goods,” she says. “I’ll save tissue paper from gifts past and use it, along with wax paper, to line the box. It’s a really beautiful and easy presentation that also lets me reuse old gift wrapping.”

When packing a cookie box that features a variety of flavors or decorative toppings, Genevieve uses precut, small wax paper sheets and wraps each type individually for additional protection. “This prevents the cookies from getting messed up and keeps their flavors intact too,” she says.

Melissa Clark, NYT Cooking columnist and interim restaurant critic (as well as the creator of the Iced Peppermint Cookies recipe), suggests layering parchment paper between any particularly sticky treats, such as lemon bars, to prevent leaks or messes from gooey fillings.

To help prevent cross-contamination of flavors, I recommend using cupcake liners to neatly separate assorted cookies by type—a tip inspired by the tins of Danish-style butter cookies I often noshed on as a kid.

Although a bit of moisture can prevent chewy cookies from going stale in a matter of days, too much moisture can make them turn soggy.

Gabriella says you should always let cookies cool completely before packing them away. Keep them on a cooling rack for at least an hour to ensure condensation won’t build up once they’re stored.

In a perfect world, all cookies would ship well, but in reality that isn’t the case. In fact, Michael says you shouldn’t even bother trying to send or store the especially delicate kinds, such as tuiles. “They never arrive in one piece, no matter how hard I try,” he says.

Genevieve gravitates toward sturdier cookie types during the holiday season—like shortbread or gingerbread—that keep well at room temperature and when she’s “delivering a lot of cookies to a lot of people.”

If you suspect that your cookies will have a difficult time on a long journey, Michael recommends placing your gift container of choice in a bigger box cushioned with tissue or newspaper for added safety before shipping it.

Melissa says that she keeps most cookies in airtight tins and stores them at room temperature. “But brownies, lemon bars, and rugelach are better in the fridge if they’re going to be stored for more than a few days,” she notes.

On the flip side, Melissa explains that shortbread and butter cookies or any cookies with icing—such as decorated gingerbread—don’t fare well in the fridge. But if you store your cookies correctly, they can last for up to a week (or two, if you’re lucky).

If you’re shipping cookies to family and friends, consider including storage instructions for each type to help your gift recipients enjoy the treats for as long as they last.

Genevieve says you can plan and finish your baking well before the holiday chaos begins.

“For especially busy holiday baking seasons, I make batches of cookies that keep well early—buttery shortbread or drop cookies—and seal them with a Cryovac machine to freeze them,” she adds. Once she’s ready to pack the cookies, she thaws them at room temperature, and they’re as good as new.

With all this cookie talk, we’re excited to put our aprons on and get into the holiday baking spirit.

This article was edited by Megan Beauchamp and Maxine Builder.

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A good cookie scoop can make quick work of portioning a large batch of dough and ensure uniform treats. The Norpro Grip-EZ beat out four others in our testing.

We’ve tested 15 different pans and made many batches of cookies since 2013, and the Nordic Ware Naturals Baker’s Half Sheet always comes out on top.

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Maki Yazawa

I’m a writer covering kitchen topics.