We keep our house cool, too, and my challa rises fine on the counter. You can even do the second rise in the refrigerator overnight. I usually make a few at a time, so after the first rise, I shape the loaves and wrap (in foil) and freeze the extras. When I want to use them, I take them out and unwrap, put on a greased sheet or in a greased loaf pan, cover with the greased foil from the freezer, and let it sit 6 hours before baking. Comes out exactly the same as if I bake it the same day. As for storage, I, too, had read that the refrigerator makes bread go stale fast. We keep sliced bread in the freezer, because we don't use it very fast. I toast it straight from the freezer or pack lunch sandwiches with frozen bread (keeps the filling fresh, too); to eat right away, I nuke it for a few seconds, but only as much as I'm sure we will eat. For the homemade or other special bread, we keep it in plastic bags in a breadbox in the pantry. I don't know why it's so, but a breadbox really, really does keep bread fresh so much longer.

lizbeth-gardener- --Perfectly softened butter should still look solid, but "give" a little when you press it lightly with your finger and leave a slight indent, but shouldn't be soft in feel or appearance. You don't want partially-melted butter. Using butter that is too soft can cause cookie spread. --Instead of the touch test for butter, try taking the temperature (place the thermometer into the stick from the narrow end into the center of the length of the stick) . Optimal temperature for fat/butter is 65-67-degrees F when you measure it with an instant-read thermometer. Since butter warms quickly when it's beat, starting at this cooler temperature prevents it from getting too soft during mixing. --Cold-from-the-refrigerator butter will be soft in 30-40-minutes at room temperature. You can speed that up by grating the butter on a large hole box grater, and grating it is a better method than in the microwave. --Don't use butter that has been sitting out on the counter for hours/days because it will probably be too soft (aka "slack" butter) due to ambient kitchen temperatures. --Thoroughly chilled dough will help assure the fat is solid once again - although if the dough got overly-warm at any point, the texture can change because the moisture and the fat in butter can separate. There are all kinds of tests for the "perfect" amount of refrigerator time, but there are too many variables from recipe-to-recipe to make that determination without testing each one. I have recipes that work best mixed and baked immediately (especially low-fat, or if liquid fat is used in the recipe), others need to be chilled at least an hour or 12-hours works well. If I freeze the dough balls, I prefer thawing them in the refrigerator overnight rather than baking them frozen, although, that's just one more option. --If you have a large amount of cookie dough to bake, be sure to keep it in the refrigerator while waiting for use. The heat in the kitchen can cause the fat to melt and the dough to go "slack", especially towards the end of the batch. --Don't continue to stir the cookie dough between handling for portioning because mixing it will over-develop the gluten and you'll get tough cookies. Pilllog mentioned not aerating the dough..... It's not so much about aerating as it is about over-mixing and over-developing the gluten once the flour has been added, which will cause the cookies to be tough. Once the fat/sugar have been properly mixed, don't over-mix the dough once the eggs have been added or the fat/liquid can "break". --Avoid placing cookie dough on a hot/warm pan. Have at least 3-4 cookies sheets to use so you always have one that is completely cool before loading the dough on it. Even warm pans will begin melting the fat in the dough. --Other causes for cookie spread: too much sugar (be sure to measure carefully), large-grained sugar (fine-grained is a better choice), too much baking soda - which makes the pH too high, too much grease or fat residue on the pan (wipe off between batches - better yet, cover them with parchment paper), incorrect temperature or cold oven temperature (be sure to preheat and check your oven for actual temperature using an oven thermometer). --Another important, and often missed, point.... When mixing the fat and sugar, be sure to take your time. If you rush through this step you can cause cookie spread because the two ingredients haven't been properly incorporated and the sugar crystals will remain too large. Other points to consider: -Size of the cookies you make. -Use a portion scoop so you get like-sized cookies which bake in the same amount of time. -Use a timer, and remember, the first pan normally takes a little longer then the subsequent pans. -In a standard oven, only bake one pan of cookies at a time and turn the pan half-way through baking. If you have a convection oven, reduce the temperature by 25-degrees F, and half-way through turn the pans and move the pans top to bottom. On a personal note, I've used nothing but insulated baking sheets for over 30-years, however I don't bake directly on the pans, I always top them with parchment paper. Adding parchment paper will give slightly different results on ALL pan types, as would adding a silicon sheet. When judging cookies at Fairs I can usually tell which kind of pan was used by the bottom of the cookies. Each pan type will give different results and there are different hints and tips for baking on each of them successfully. -Grainlady

I freeze mine. I made a batch of SharonCB's Aunt Doe's shortbread..as soon as they were cool..in a ziplock into the freezer for a few days..even though....they stay perfect closed in a container on the counter...I wanted them ut most fresh...I then took them out...the night before I was going to chocolatize them...Everyone raved... It won't hurt to freeze most of them..but Lisa's right..2-3 days pre eating won't matter much with most cookies... ~part of the other reason I froze them...they wouldn't get eaten by my klan....~

Thanks for the feedback. I did change it up in the second batch but I just realized that I didn't describe my process in my haste to finish the post. More info... I used commercial aluminum bun pans lined with parchment paper. The first batch I had two pans, both had red on one half and green on the other. One pan was placed in the middle of the oven and then other was in the upper third. Both pans had red on the left half and green on the right half. My initial thought was uneven heating left to right. Top to bottom I expect, but both pans were very similar, so if there was a difference top to bottom it wasn't that great. For the second batch I put all green on one pan and all red on the other. I put the red pan in the upper third and green in the middle. The green pan had darker bottoms across the board. I'm going to try the same recipe next week. Only this time, I'm going to do all red in one batch and all green in the other. That's probably the only way I'll know for sure.