It’s not too early to start baking holiday cookies that you can freeze! Here are my tips:

1) Invest in parchment paper to bake your cookies; no greasing, no mess and the cookies come off the baking sheet nicely. Scrape the crumbs off the parchment paper once cooking is complete and save the paper for the next time you bake. I reuse the parchment over and over again.

2) Make cookies that freeze well like biscotti, drop cookies and any type that doesn’t require icing.

3) Cookie doughs are best prepared with room temperature ingredients; butter, eggs, toppings and flour should all be at room temperature for best results with cookie dough.

4) Freeze the cookies in groups of 4 and wrap each group separately; this way you can withdraw the amount you want. Place groups in plastic bags; mark the date on the bag and freeze flat on the freezer rack.

5) Bar cookies freeze well; for a pan of brownies, for example, bake them in a pan lined with foil and let the foil overhang the pan; When the brownies are done, simply lift the ends of the foil to remove the brownies without leaving half behind! When ready to eat, cut them once frozen for a clean, even cut. This also works well for a jam-filled bar cookie.

6) Use the correct measuring cups when making cookie dough; glass measures are for liquids and metal and plastic measures are for dry ingredients.

7) Wet your hands frequently when making round ball type cookies; this will prevent your hands from getting clumped with the dough.

8) Let the cookie sheets cool between baking so the dough doesn’t spread from residual heat.

9) When recipes call for extract, make sure the bottle says 100% pure extract; flavorings are another thing entirely, being mostly water and artificial ingredients. Extracts must be made with 35% alcohol.

10) If cooking with convection heat, lower the oven temperature by 25 degrees; so if the recipe says cook at 350F and you want to use convection, cook at 325F.