This Clever Cookie Hack Makes Christmas Baking 100 Times Easier

It’s the most wonderful time of the year: baking season. With the holidays just around the corner, the smell of Christmas is in the air — or is that freshly baked cookies? Baking for a crowd can be a huge undertaking, especially if you have little ones running around the kitchen sticking their hands in the batter and trying to lick the spoon. (But hey, it’s all part of the holiday fun.) However, baking may not be so hard this year after all, with Erin Dittmer’s ingenious cookie hack.

In an Instagram post, Dittmer shared a baking tip to make baking gingerbread cookies so much simpler. Instead of chilling, rolling out the sticky dough, and using cookie cutters to form the shapes, the creator suggests baking a cookie bar first. Just spread the dough evenly on a cookie sheet until it covers the surface and bake at the desired temperature. Once the cookie bar is baked, then use cookie cutters to press out the shapes.

Once the cookies are shaped and have cooled, you can begin decorating (the best part!). Despite pressing out the silhouettes with a cookie cutter post-baking, the edges still seem to be pretty clean and even. Dittmer promises that this method makes the process quicker and eliminates any extra mess. This is especially intriguing if you’re baking cookies for a lot of people like a school bake sale, work holiday party, or even just your large extended family.

However, in order to make sure food doesn’t go to waste — because cookies should never go to waste — you can use the leftover pieces of the cookie bar as a snack while you decorate. Or, one user suggests crumbling the leftovers onto some ice cream. Now, it’s time to bake!