How Long Does Sugar Cookie Dough Last In The Fridge
Sugar cookie dough if properly wrapped in plastic can be stored for up to 2 weeks in the refrigerator. If you want to make sugar cookies, it is best to take the dough out of the fridge about 30 minutes before starting the recipe. However, frozen cookie dough can last up to a year.
Raw sugar cookie dough will last about 5 days in the fridge, or up to 3 months in the freezer. Shortbread cookies last for a maximum of 5 days in the fridge, however, the shortbread dough will freeze beautifully. Drop cookies will last 3-5 days in the refrigerator, and are also the ideal candidate cookies to freeze.
You only get around three to five days of refrigerator life out of a homemade cookie dough, but the dough can last between six to 12 months when frozen. Cookie dough that you buy will last up to three weeks in the refrigerator at best, and frozen cookie dough can last for a full year. If you keep regular, fresh, frozen cookie dough in your refrigerator, you can generally expect that this cookie dough will be around 1-2 weeks past the “use by” date. Most cookie dough has a 12 month shelf life in the freezer, and it is likely to still be safe to eat even up to one to two months after the best by date.
As a rule, any cookie dough left on the counter at room temperature will be fine for 2-4 hours, but after that, there is a chance that it could turn bad, particularly if it is past its best-by date. Keeping cookie dough in the refrigerator will also extend its shelf life, not quite as long as freezing, but certainly longer than just leaving them on the counter. As much as you may not want to wait longer to bake and eat your cookies, most cookie recipes will tell you to chill the cookie dough in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes before baking.
At that time, you can either wrap your cookies up and store the cookies for later, or bake them if you are ready to adorn. Doing so will keep your cookies from spreading out too much, so chilling your dough is a critical step when cutting and rolling cookies. It helps the dough to relax, which helps to keep cookies from becoming misshaped when baking.
The sugars in the dough soak up moisture from the flour, which causes the cookies to turn brown and caramelized. Flour needs to hydrate — it soaks into all of the other ingredients of a cookie, but if you let your dough sit in the refrigerator for too long, it can solidify to a point where it is nearly impossible to work with.
Refrigerating it will let the fats (butter or shortening) cool, and so cookies will not spread out too much when they bake. The reason why edible cookie dough does not require refrigeration is because its ingredients are heat-treated: the flour is baked, while eggs are left out, so there is no risk of food poisoning if this kind of dough is not refrigerated.
| Storage Places | Shelf Life |
| Fridge | 1-2 weeks |
| Freezer | 12 months |
| Room Temperature | 3 hours |
Raw eggs will moisten the dried ingredients and help the cookie dough hold together, but raw eggs are also prone to spoiling, particularly if combined with other ingredients like sugar, fat, and flour. Raw eggs, combined with sugar, butter, and other ingredients, may spoil over time, making your dough–and the cookies that come from it–unhealthy for you. A couple cookie recipes do not contain eggs, so depending on what else is in the recipe, this may be safe if left out on the counter, but it is still recommended that you stay safe and keep them refrigerated.
Chilling your dough helps to control how much your cookies spread out while baking, and depending on how long you chill your dough, can result in more concentrated flavors and a crisper cookie after baking. This can be difficult with sugar cookies, since the higher moisture/fat content tends to also promote spreading, so the best way to make sure that your cookies remain soft is to ensure that you do not overbake them. It is best to chill dough, rather than cookies, because the effects of that will be felt in the end flavor and look of your cookies. Some recipes, like Sugar Cookies and Linzer Cookies, will always require you to refrigerate your dough, whereas others, such as Chocolate Chip Cookies, usually will not.
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You are getting some pretty wide ranges here, ranging from 1-2 weeks to anywhere from 6-12 months, and again, we are going to remind you that additives, flavors, and other factors all have an impact on how long cookie dough will last. The answer is that uncooked cookie dough you have made at home will last for up to 5 days at most in the fridge, provided that it is stored airtight.
Sugar cookies can be stored at room temperature in the cookie jar for 2-3 days, or stored in a cool, dry, airtight container for up to 3 weeks. If you must store baked, uniced cookies, you can tightly wrap the baked cookies in plastic wrap or put them in an airtight container for up to two days. If you do not have a heat-sealing device or a cellophane bag, an airtight container will keep cookies fresh for several days. Once I have baked, cooled, icing, and dried the cookies, I pack them into cello bags and seal with my heat sealer.
Then, once cookies are frozen, remove raw cookies from parchment paper, stack them into batches of 8 (because that is how many I could fit on one baking sheet tray) and tightly wrap each stack with plastic wrap. Your cookies will not look like flat, solid discs, which is what might happen if you do not chill the dough, but will look airy and chewy.
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This type of cookie dough has an added ingredient in the form of chocolate chips, which still needs to stay fresh up to 5 days for a homemade chocolate chip dough, or up to 2 weeks after the expiration date of store-bought chocolate chip cookie dough. Cookie dough that you make at home can last three months in the freezer (just remember to write down the small tag that says freeze date), whereas store-bought doughs last up to 12 months in the freezer, giving you lots of time to use them. Baking soda and baking powder make teeny tiny bubbles in your dough, which is what gives them their softer bite, but it also leads to spongy, misshaped cookies (which is why I created my recipe for orange vanilla cardamom cookies, which contains a bit of baking powder, but it still holds shape and has a good consistency).
How do I know if my dough is bad?
The dough is probably past its prime if, upon removal from the refrigerator, its texture has changed or it feels extremely dry and has a crusty appearance. Place it in the trash. Cookie dough that is grey in hue rather than white or beige when it should be, or dough with grey flecks, is also probably ruined.
What Happens if You Refrigerate Cookie Dough Too Long?
As the flour absorbs moisture, the result will be a thicker and chewier final texture. The dough will dry out within 72 hours, especially if you chill pre portioned balls of dough rather than the entire mass. A few hours of chilling will increase the flavor of cookie dough, but not too much.
What Does Bad Dough Smell Like?
The dough may have gone bad, and you are wondering what to do. Is it okay for cookie dough to smell like alcohol? The smell of beer can be evident after cookie dough has risen. As a byproduct of yeast fermentation, alcohol is produced.