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An Awesome Portion Control Trick For Homemade Cookies

January 25, 2012   62 Comments

So, you like to bake - but you have a problem. Yes, I know that problem well.

Frozen Oatmeal Cookie Recipe

You bake a couple dozen cookies and then they stare at you from wherever you have put them. Haunting you...... Just one more, you say, as you eat two more.

I have this rule about baked goods that I only eat ones that I have baked (or that someone I know has baked). These keeps me from eating stale, terrible, supermarket cookies when I see them.

This rule has helped me drop some unnecessary pounds and now I savor my baked goods. BUT, if I have them around I can't stop eating them.

So, with the help of a reader's comment, I came up with this handy method of having my cookies without overindulging. Check this out:

icecubetray

I put my finished oatmeal raisin cookie dough into an ice cube tray! And, then I froze them and dumped them out into a freezer bag. Now if I want a fresh baked cookie, I heat up my oven, get out a baking sheet, and bake a reasonable number for my family.

This would be even better if I had a toaster oven because I wouldn't have to heat my whole oven for such a small load.

I put on my apron when my children get off the school bus and pretend I have been baking all afternoon. Take that - Martha Stewart!! HA! I look like super mom as I serve them fresh baked cookies.

I need a cape (and some cool tights and maybe a pair of kickin' leather boots).

Try this oatmeal raisin cookie recipe - it is super delicious and fast to make.

How do you deal with the too many cookies problem?

oatmealcookieb

Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Recipe

1.8 from 26 reviews

(makes 20 cookies)

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Ingredients

4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup rolled oats
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup raisins

Instructions

Soften butter in microwave (or leave out of the fridge if you remember). Mix butter, sugar, and egg in a large bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix until combined. Place cookies in ice cube tray and freeze (about 5 hours). When frozen, take out of tray and put in freezer bag.

Preheat oven to 375 F. Place frozen cookie on ungreased baking sheet. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until light brown. Enjoy!

Nutrition Facts

For one cookie = 73 calories, 2.9 g fat, 10.6 g carbohydrates, 1.5 g protein, 0.7 g fiber, 21 mg sodium, 2 Points+

Points values are calculated by Snack Girl and are provided for information only. See all Snack Girl Recipes

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62 Comments:

Excellent make-'em-as-you-want-'em tip, Lisa! :)

But I need another tip! Where does one buy ice-cube trays?

A year or so ago, I hunted for some for my wife (to use as a paint palette) for months and came up empty. Help!

Thank you for following me on Twitter, Lisa - that's how I found your site, and am enjoying the tips already! One question, can you estimate about how much sugar is in one cookie? Just finished blogging about sugar overconsumption, so have it on the brain...http://retracingmysteps.blogspot.com. Thanks!

Andy D. -- Try ebay!

Thanks Lisa, what a great idea!!

I love this tip. You know, home baked cookies really do taste so much better than store bought cookies.

Andy, they have ice cube trays at Target, probably most grocery stores have them too

Thank you, tanna! I thought I checked Target and nearby grocery stores, but maybe I overlooked the obvious! I'll try again. Thanks! :)

Ohhhh..I wish it were that easy..will help...but I'll still eat the frozen raw cookie dough..! haha.

Try any $1 store.

Thank you all for the suggestions about sourcing the ice-cube trays.

I could have sworn that I checked Target, our two grocery stores, and the dollar store (and Big Lots), to no avail, but again, maybe I overlooked the obvious, so I will check! Thanks! :)

This is pure genius.

BRILLIANT!!! I usually bake a batch and freeze the baked cookies. This idea will make it more difficult for me to sneak one 'cuz I'd have to bake it first. I'm like you Lisa and I don't buy store brand cookies. Even ones from the bakery dept don't taste good. Only homemade. I'm definitely going to do this!

ps - I think the ice cube trays are sold where you buy the rubbermaid containers at Target. I had to buy some a few years back and I think that's where they were. Or pick up one of the courtesy phones and let an associate find it for you.

Wow, what a great idea! I would never in a million of years thought of that! I'm going to try your cookies to!!

I have seen a bunch at Salvation Army stores (and I have donated a lot of them, too!). Just pop them in the dishwasher to clean them up.

We found them about a year ago at Walmart.

You can also just roll the dough into balls or portion out w/small ice cream scoop, and place on a lined cookie sheet to freeze. Once frozen put into plastic bag. You don't need an ice cube tray if you don't have one available.

Great idea. Note to self: I need a bigger freezer...

What I like to do is make the whole batch and take half of the batch and send it to work with my boyfriend (or you could take them to work yourself). This way you get to enjoy cookies without over indulging and earn points with co workers.

I JUST Had this problem yesterday. Had baked some cookies for my husband and son so I could get rid of all the extra trail mix I had lying around (and shouldn't eat)Then I took the extras I had frozen to my art club. I brought the rest back and ate 3 more myself before I put managed to get them back in the freezer.However they still lurk, calling, in the freezer.. and I have no problem with even frozen cookies. THIS is a great idea!I will definitely try it.

Thanks for the great idea! I rarely make cookies for my kids because I eat too many. I'm going to make these this weekend.

This is pretty freakin' brilliant! I DEFINITELY need some built in portion control when it comes to sweet treats. Thanks for the tip! -Sarah @EatingLikeSarah

Snack girl.. this is an awesome idea! imagine pulling our freshly baked cookies during a tea party.. without going nuts ;-) ..

I'm going to share with me readers on www.esvasa.com - in the tips section.. love the freezing idea to no end :-))))

I make lots of cookie and freeze it. However,

regardless of how I hide it in my freezer it is found by my son who likes to put a big blob on a salad plate and microwave it until it is half done and then he eats it hot and gooey. It really is very good. Shhh... :)

BLESS YOU-- from one cookie adict to another-- THIS will WORK!

Oh my gosh - that's a brilliant idea!

This is a great idea! another tip I try is to make the remainder of the dough into a slice and bake operation. I place the batter onto plastic wrap and make it into a tube. Then pop the whole thing into the freezer. Cut off a few slices for the toaster oven and put the rest back in the freezer.

What a simply great idea!! Bravo and thanks for sharing. You could have a freezer tray swap party with friends!

Great idea! Any idea how long the cookie dough will keep in the freezer?

Very clever! I usually do what Jenny does - just roll the dough into balls and freeze on a plate till they are firm enough to dump in a ziplock bag for the freeze.

I too have a rule to eat only truly delicious baked goods that either I or somebody I know has baked. I've also been able to better control my weight as a result.

It's fun making your own "food rules."

I love this tip! I can't wait to try this one out, maybe it'll help keep my hand out of the cookie jar! IKEA has really fun, shaped ice cube trays. They would be great for the kids.

Thank you all for the ice-cube-tray-sourcing ideas.

As suggested, I did find them at Target, by all the Rubbermaid kind of stuff. One (by Rubbermaid?) was kind of expensive at $2.50 per, but another was like $1.79 for a pair, so I got those.

Thanks again!

This won't work for me I like cookie dough more than baked cookies. I just keep the cookies out of the house. No fun, but it works.

Wow... so nice of baking cookies. Thanks for sharing great information with us. I love lot preparing baking cookies and present them also. http://www.tatesbakeshop.com/

I just love this idea! And the cookies sound delicious. Will have to try them out

I love this idea! I've been freezing small batches of cookie dough and them baking them as needed, but that still leaves me with a dozen cookies at a time. This is a much better idea! We don't have ice-cube trays, and I am reticent to buy more *stuff* so I think what will do is drop the cookie dough onto a cookie sheet, freeze it, then bag them. I bet a whole huge batch would fit on one sheet, since you don't have to worry about spacing them. I do the same thing with strawberries in the summer (wash them, cut the tips, freeze them on cookie sheets, and then bag them up). Thanks for the great idea!

Andy- Try a dollar store!

OK, this is a little random, but I wonder whether there might be some people here who'll appreciate the tip: sometimes when I feel like I wish I could lean out my protein a little, I'll open a can of refried beans and portion it into the sections of an ice-cube tray, freeze it, then dump the contents into a plastic bag. Then, when making dinner, I can just plop one of the cubes onto each plate (they take about 30 seconds to heat up) and, voila!, lean protein without any of the pressure to rush through the can before it gets old!

Andy D - I've gotten ice cube trays at WalMart.

Fabulous idea, and so easy too! I have just started freezing cookie dough myself and have found that freezing small logs of dough (just enough dough for a dozen or so cookies), then wrapping in plastic wrap and sticking in a container that fits a few logs works well too. When we need cookies, I can then slice the frozen dough with a sharp knife and bake in less than 15 minutes! I find this takes up less freezer space too...

I did this yesterday! Thanks for the great idea! But instead of ice cube trays, I just laid the individual cookie-dough scoops on a cookie sheet (close together, but not touching) and put the cookie sheet in the freezer for about 5 hours, then transferred them to a freezer bag. I forgot to count, but I bet there were several dozen on there.

Today I baked two cookies in the toaster oven, and I was worried that I would have to alter the temp or cooking time, due to the dough being frozen, or that they wouldn't bake properly. But they came out great!

Please do not begin your sentences with the word "so." While you may be caught up in following the latest lingo-fad, it is poor grammar and should never be used by one who is attempting to educate the public via their writing skills.

I just did the same thing yesterday! But I just use a cookie scoop, scoop 'em onto a cookie sheet (side to side - no need to leave room for spreading, since you aren't going to bake these), pop the tray in the freezer for about 20 minutes, then take the tray out and transfer the cookie dough balls to a ziploc bag. Stick that in the freezer and you have a bag-o-cookie-dough-balls, ready for baking! (My problem is that I will easily break into the freezer and eat a cookie dough ball, straight from the bag. geesh... ;)

Amazon has 517 hits on ice cube trays, ladies.

@Karen - I make many grammatical errors in an attempt to SPEAK to my readers. This is a choice of style - and the nice thing about writing your own website is that you can make these choices. I am sorry it upsets you.

I like the ice-cream style scoop tactic myself, to make cookies and serve desserts--you can get them in small sizes here http://amzn.to/wixZzM.

If you can't find ice cube trays, empty Styrofoam egg cartons work great.

Why do you put them in the ice cube trays first? Why not just cool them completely on a cooling rack, and then put them in a zip lock bag?

The ice cube tray thing works great, but you can also use styrofoam egg cartons or mini muffin tins in a pinch!!

@Lauren - I want to make fresh baked cookies - so I am trying to freeze before baking and THEN bake to have the freshest cookies possible. Thanks for your question!

I do the scoops of dough onto a cookie sheet and into the freezer trick. Then dump them into a ziplock bag & throw them back into the freezer.

But like several others mentioned...cookie dough tastes best unbaked.

....And cookie sheets are easier to wash than ice cube trays.

Just put your cookie-sized lumps of cookie dough on something flat in the freezer until they are hard. Then package them in freezer bags for storage. I toss in a slip of paper with cooking time and temp. No need for the ice cube trays.

I'm with Gail. How do you keep from eating the frozen cookie dough?

I saw this awesome link on pint rest. Just defrost your cookie dough and put it in a waffle iron if you have one.

http://lifehacker.com/5398863/make-cookies-in-90-seconds-wi…

The ice cube trays would be a great way to portion your no-bake chocolate chip cookies, too!

i love it and i will try to do it ,, can you tell me how to do easy snaks and ast for school "iam trying to lose wight" so if you have a more healthy snaks ?

This is a great idea, but I'm pretty sure I would just go ahead and eat all of the cookie dough.

I love you. Seriously. Thank you for posting so much helpful information. I don't always follow it, but I learn so much! I wanted chocolate chip cookies last night, but I knew I could not be trusted with them. Now I know what to do. You and wise readers are fantastic. (I'm a reader, but I'm not trying to self-compliment...not that it's a word!)

Thanks Snack Girl for another great recipe....looking forward to making these also.

Now give us some good breakfast muffin recipes with few ingredients :)such as Bran, Carrot,etc.

Fantastic idea! DO you need to thaw the cookie dough before cooking? Does the temp need to be lower/higher and does the cooking time change?

While this sounds great and I may try it - I'm telling you right now im going to end up eating frozen, ice cubed shaped pieces of cookie dough

my granddaughter doesn't like raisins, can this be made without? will this change the tasre

Love all your recipes by the way👍Im on weight watchers love your points that you calculate for us,The question i have is when i put your recipe into my recipes but to track your for grams for sugar and saturated fat,as it wont let me calculate for the 2 point cookie

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