I have a sick obsession with holiday baking. (“Sick” like how the kids say it because all my baking is fire.) December is my signal to start baking for friends' parties, for my own Christmas gatherings, and for shipping to friends near and far. Sending a box full of homemade treats should bring a smile to the faces of those you care for. Make sure they arrive in pristine condition, and not a broken mess of holiday disappointment. Here are the tips I use every year to successfully ship holiday cookies. 

Select your treats wisely

Some treats ship better than others. I’ve seen boxes that look like a herd of disgruntled reindeer used them for a runway. Shipping is not for weak or delicate cookies. Instead, select sturdy treats like drop cookies, brownies, bars, thick cookie-cutter cookies, and fudge. Steer clear of tuiles, almond macarons, or cookies that have runny jam, or sticky frosting. Anything slab shaped, like brownies, bars, or fudge can be left unsliced. Ship it in a single brick and the recipient can cut it once it arrives.

Don’t pack warm cookies

You might be preparing five, six, or twelve boxes of cookies. It’s a hectic time, but don’t rush to pack them. Wait for your cookies to cool completely on a wire rack before nestling them in the cookie box. Chill them in the fridge briefly if you need to speed things along. Warm cookies are still flexible, the fats and sugars haven’t set, and any chocolate present will still be molten. Stacking those cookies in a box might cause them to bend, squish, or break. Additionally, if you close up the cookie tin tightly, humidity will build in the box. This could cause bacteria or mold to grow over the course of the shipping time.

Pack “like with like”

When I think of Christmas cookies, I think of a tin crammed with all different flavors, shapes, and designs. It’s hard to resist a variety. While you don’t need to pare down what you bake, you should consider how you pack it all. I like to use the term “like with like,” and all that means is to keep similar cookies in the same “room.” Focus specifically on “like” flavors or aromas, and “like” textures. This will prevent treats from changing due to the impact of “un-like” neighbors in the immediate vicinity. 

For example, packing soft fig cookies with crisp peppermint shortbread would be a bad idea. The soft cookies will add humidity to the air and soften the shortbread, messing with the texture, sure, but also making them more likely to break. The peppermint aroma could also be absorbed by the fig cookies, which is not exactly how the artist intended it to be experienced. While the scent of chocolate doesn’t tend to seep into other cookies, spice cookies and peppermint can really make an impact.

To prevent this, pack the cookies in separate tins or boxes, or wrap the cookies tightly in plastic wrap or zip-top bags to help separate them. Try to keep soft cookies and bars in airtight packaging so they don’t lose moisture.

Try a different cookie “tin”

Metal cookie tins are relatively air-tight, and freakin’ adorable with their cute patterns, but my friends have told me that they still have the tins from last year. Which ends up being weird storage for them, or trash after the cookies are gone. If you’re shipping cookies year after year, this can be a cumbersome collection. 

If you see your giftees often, have them return the tins to you for next year. If not, consider bakery boxes for treats that don’t need to be air-tight, or alternative repurposed containers. Paper dessert boxes can be lighter than cookie tins too, which might shave a dollar or so off your shipping price. Pringles cans, or coffee cans make excellent cookie holders. They might not bear images of polar bears or Santa wearing buffalo plaid, but they’re ready for this honorable duty. 

Pack it securely with alternative packing material

Packing cookies securely is the final step to ensuring they arrive in pristine condition. It might seem like packing the space between the cookie tin and the cardboard box is good enough, but you’d be mistaken. The space inside the cookie vessel is the enemy too. The main trick is packing them tightly inside and out. Obviously, pack as many cookies in there as possible because everyone likes more cookies, and fill the small spaces between the cookies and on top of them. When you put the lid on the material will keep the cookies in place no matter how the box gets tossed around during shipping.

I like to sit my cookies in cupcake liners inside a cookie tin. The ruffled edges tend to fan out and fill up the voids and keep the cookies from moving from side to side. In the space above, I crumple up a sheet of parchment paper and fit it onto the top. Flat parchment is nearly useless but the crumpling creates more of a 3-D air buffer that keeps the cookies from bouncing up—but it’s also flexible so you can still snap on the lid. To make sure my packing was sufficient, I like to turn it upside down and shake it lightly side to side to mimic travel on a bouncy road. (If anyone once thought I was cool, this should be enough to dispel that myth.)

You could buy packing bubbles or paper packing I suppose, but I always feel wasteful using brand new materials that will immediately get chucked. If you’re receiving boxes in the days before shipping your cookies, save the packaging from those boxes and reuse them. You can also pack the box with anything that can be repurposed or isn’t terribly wasteful. Use alternative packing materials like all the totes you’ve acquired over the year, folded second-use cardboard, crumpled paper destined for the trash (newspapers or pages torn from mailer catalogs you never asked for), or plain popcorn is also excellent for packing. Although it’s wasting food, it’s cheap, not particularly nutritious, and you get 7-10 cups of popcorn from four tablespoons of kernels. 

Ship earlier than you think

Homemade cookies are cozy, festive reminders of the holiday season we’re in; don’t delay on sharing the good vibes. That, and the U.S. postal service is about to get utterly slammed. Their website gives you a useful chart of shipping deadlines based on the type of service you’ll be using. Faster shipping costs more and buys you a little more time, but not much. Play it safe and try to get your cookies to the post office by Dec. 16. Then you can rest assured that your friends and family will get their bundle of sweets with plenty of time to enjoy them before Santa comes to take his cut.

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