Yeah I guess I know now why I seldom like bakery cookies if that's true! Though I do occasionally buy from some local bakeries and I know they don't leave them sitting around for a month. In fairness, many good bakeries will be selling Christmas cookies a month before, but they're not month old cookies! LOL I do see some bakeries leaving their cookies sitting in the cases for a few days and even cake donuts are sometimes kept a couple days but usually they're starting with an inferior product anyway, in my book. Many have a "best if used by" date on them too. There's good bakeries and bad and this is proof that "expensive" does not mean "good" to say nothing of "better"! I too can tell cookies are getting stale after a few days to a week depending on the type. Fresh is definitely better. And no way is a month old cookie perfectly fresh in either definition or in taste, at least in my book. I understand how they get away with it. People don't know what they're supposed to taste like so they don't know what they are. But I'd venture a guess that few people would compare (side by side) a freshly baked one and a month old cookie and say they taste the same. Although what many of these "bakeries" call Christmas cookies... (shudder). Then you leave them sitting around another couple weeks? I think I'd rather have slice or break-n-bake! I tend to freeze some cookies and take out in batches unless they'll be consumed in a couple days, which usually they are. Again, frozen is not the same as fresh but certainly better than sit-arounds. Hard cookies will sit out better than soft cookies though, but even the crumbly peanut butter cookies are affected after 4 or 5 days. I would freeze them but they'd be edible if left out. Might just taste more like a bakery cookie than homemade! LOL

Tannabanana, I regularly freeze unbaked bread dough. I mix, let rise, form the rolls and then freeze. If they are used within a couple of months they will be fine. I take mine out the night before and let them thaw/rise overnight in the refrigerator, I'm talking about 8 pm the night before. I take them from the refrigerator in the morning, let them come to room temp and rise, then bake just like I would if they were fresh. It also works great for fresh cinnamon rolls for breakfast! Annie

An update for anyone who may be interested... This morning before leaving for work, I took the "sausage" of pastry from more than 4 days in the freezer and left it in the fridge. It was rock hard, like a concrete block. When I arrived home from work, it had thawed nicely, and I left it (still wrapped) on the kitchen bench to come up to room temperature. About 30 minutes. Time to roll it out, and it felt slightly softer or wetter than I remembered. No problem, just a smidgen heavier dusting of flour on the board. It rolled easier, cooked better and tasted sublime. A noticeable improvement on the first time. I'm now going to prepare several extra portions whenever I make a batch. Will try different wrapping (zip-lock bags, foil), date the packages and experiment with longer durations of time to discover the upper limits. 4 days probably isn't a fair trial. Maybe I'll even freeze some rolled out raw ones, too. Food for thought...

When I'm in doubt about whether or not an item can be frozen and thawed successfully, I freeze a sample of the item, then defrost and bake it as usual. If it bakes normally and tastes good, I know I can freeze the whole batch. Might seem weird to bake just one or two cookies, but at least I have my answer without guessing!