Cooking Can cookies with maraschino cherries on top be frozen?

[jo-jo]

Every year at Christmas, I make almond press cookies with maraschino cherries on top. And then other shapes with jimmies/sprinkles. Never had a need to freeze any cookies. This year too many cookies, so I froze some with the jimmies/sprinkles. Took them out a month later, they were fine.

Two weeks ago I offered to make a bunch of these cookies for a friend's wedding, but said I wanted to freeze them and not take the chance of being sick a few days before the wedding. ( She was the one that tasted the frozen cookies and said they were fine.) I just made 400 almond press cookies, some with cherries, some with jimmies, some with nuts on top. I'm ready to freeze them for the wedding in 12 days. I just remembered some fruit does not freeze well. Has anyone frozen cookies with maraschino cherries?

 

[DLgal]

Every year at Christmas, I make almond press cookies with maraschino cherries on top. And then other shapes with jimmies/sprinkles. Never had a need to freeze any cookies. This year too many cookies, so I froze some with the jimmies/sprinkles. Took them out a month later, they were fine.

Two weeks ago I offered to make a bunch of these cookies for a friend's wedding, but said I wanted to freeze them and not take the chance of being sick a few days before the wedding. ( She was the one that tasted the frozen cookies and said they were fine.) I just made 400 almond press cookies, some with cherries, some with jimmies, some with nuts on top. I'm ready to freeze them for the wedding in 12 days. I just remembered some fruit does not freeze well. Has anyone frozen cookies with maraschino cherries?

I would not freeze those types of cherries. They will likely end up releasing juice as they thaw, making the cookie soggy. When you freeze fruit, it forms sharp ice crystals and those pierce the cells in the fruit so when you defrost, the liquid is lost.

However, you can mitigate this by freezing instantly using dry ice. Get a block of dry ice and break it up into small chunks. Place the wrapped cookies at the bottom of a cooler and dump the ice on top. They should be hard frozen in a few minutes, then move to your freezer. When you freee things quickly, the ice crystals will be smaller and less jagged, so the fruit structure should stay intact.

 

[jo-jo]

Thank you, I was hoping the baking process would have dried them out enough.

 

[Blanco]

You have to dehydrate them or candy them. You’ll end up having mushy cookies due to the juice inside the cherry leaking to the cookie.

 

[mikeuno]

I plan on making homemade maraschinos using frozen pitted cherries & simple syrup later today.
Will try the quick freeze dry ice method you suggest, thanks!