The 'Brilliant' Hack For Using Up Leftover Christmas Cookies
Use our Basic Cookie Dough recipe as the base for these festive holiday trees. You can also decorate these cookies with our Basic Decorating Icing in place of the icing recipe listed below. Get the recipe for Christmas Tree Cookies
As we say farewell to the holidays (and 2023), there are still a few leftovers hanging around we just can’t seem to figure out what to do with. Odds are there are pieces of ham, a spoonful or two of mac and cheese left, and at least 20 intricately decorated cookies.
When it comes to giving the remains of Christmas past an upgrade, we often default to handling the savory components, leaving the sweeter hangers-on to fend for themselves or be relegated to the waste bin. But what if, in addition to making ham sandwiches, you could also find a way to use up those pesky leftover cookies? Thanks to Joy Huang, known as @joyosity on Instagram, we’ve got some leftover Christmas cookie inspo we can’t wait to give a try.
Related: The Two Ingredient Hack for Homemade Brown Sugar
We’ve all experienced, at one point or another, the pain of reaching for a cookie and finding it to be stale or chewier than normal and devoid of any of the magic that made it so delicious in the first place. Joy’s answer to overcoming the recurring stale cookie nightmare? Toss them into a batch of homemade frozen custard or ice cream!
No longer do we have to fear the dreaded and unsatisfying first bite of what used to be a crispy gingerbread man. Gone are the days of tossing mountains of cookies into the trash. It’s a post-Christmas miracle!
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Joy’s premise is simple: take the remaining cookies — snickerdoodles, sugar cookies, shortbread, more or less the whole cookie jar — and crumble them into your favorite custard base before adding the mixture into your ice cream maker. When it comes to which recipe is best, Joy recommends using Jeni Britton of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream fame, and she takes a cue from the brand’s latest seasonal flavor: creamy, delicious eggnog.
Related: The Genius Way to Chill Cookie Dough in 15 Minutes Flat
To prepare the base, you’ll need a good eggnog or salted egg custard, a generous splash of your favorite tipple (preferably Uncle Nearest) and a little bit of nutmeg. Of course the hack was met with praise from all corners of the internet with multiple people calling the cookie saving trick “brilliant.” “Ohh wow. That’s a great idea ????” said one impressed person. “Oooh yum!!!” agreed another.
As far as tips for getting the most out of your hard work go, using an ice cream maker is probably the gold-standard method providing you with a consistent end product. Fortunately, if you aren’t lucky enough to have an ice cream maker handy, there are plenty of easy to whip up no-churn ice cream recipes just begging to have toppings (like leftover cookies) mixed in.
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