Here is the recipe my Mom used when I was a girl. As long as it is tightly wrapped it keeps a few days in the fridge.

ICEBOX COOKIES

2 cups flour, sifted

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup shortening

1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract (I used Almond instead)

Sift dry ingredients together, set aside. Cream shortening and both sugars well. Add egg and extract and beat until light and fluffy. Blend in dry ingredients just until well combined; will be a little crumbly, but will come together when you form the logs. Divide dough into 2 equal parts. Place on waxed paper and shape into rolls 1-1/2" in diameter. Wrap in waxed paper. Chill thoroughly at least several hours. Preheat oven to 425° Cut logs into slices about 1/8" thick and place on ungreased cookie sheets (I used Parchment Paper anyway.) Bake 6 - 8 minutes.

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The only cookie dough you can't make a little ahead is the kind with baking powder or a baking soda leaving (i.e., with an acid, including cream of tartar). The leavening action will be lost, at least partially.

Some doughs with egg could get funky, especially if the egg provides a lot of liquid.

So, yes, your maple tuiles should work fine.

Wrapping the dough air tight will help a lot. If you're using a container, tuck plastic film all around on top of the dough.

But why are you baking them with the group? Won't they want the oven space to bake their own cookies? Why not bake them up ahead of time, and have cookies ready to decorate while the new ones are baking? Or bake them in the couple hours preceding the party so they'll be fresh out of the oven, and the oven will be hot and ready for the next batch.

Ideal doughs for making ahead of time are ones that want to be chilled anyway, like slice and bake logs, shortbread, gingerbread.

I've also made dough ahead of time and refrigerated it for a couple of days without problems, and I've frozen dough for months and still had good results when baking, I often portion out a batch of dough, freeze on a sheet pan and store in a ziplock bag, I can take out a dozen when I want and bake them and just like that, fresh cookies!

If you want something different, I make these and I don't know anyone else who does, and they are a lovely pink color for Christmas, although the green maraschino cherries would work too, I'm sure. Instead of making balls and flattening them, I just roll the dough into logs, wrap in plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator, slice off cookies as I need/want them. I also just toss it into the food processor until I get a dough, usually it's kind of crumbly and I have to knead it a little to get it to come together.

White Chocolate Cherry Shortbread

1/2 cup maraschino cherries, drained and finely chopped

2 ½ cups all purpose flour

½ cup sugar

1 cup cold butter

12 ounces white chocolate squares with cocoa butter, finely chopped
(I just used Ghiradelli white chips)

½ teaspoon almond extract

2 drops red food coloring (optional)

2 teaspoons shortening

White nonpareils and/or red edible glitter (optional )

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Spread cherries on paper towels to drain well.

In a large bowl, combine flour and sugar. Using a pastry blender, cut in the butter until mixture resembles fine crumbs. Stir in drained cherries and 4 ounces (2/3 cup) of the chopped chocolate. Stir in almond extract and, if desired, food coloring. Knead until smooth and form into a ball (dough will be crumbly at first, but will come together as you work the dough with your hands).

Shape dough into 3/4-inch balls. Place balls 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.

Using the bottom of a drinking glass dipped in sugar, flatten balls to 1-1/2-inch rounds. Bake in preheated oven for 10 to 12 minutes or until centers are set. Cool for 1 minute. Transfer cookies to a wire rack and let cool.

In a small saucepan, combine remaining 8 ounces white chocolate and the shortening. Cook and stir over low heat until melted. Dip half of each cookie into chocolate, allowing excess to drip off. If desired, roll dipped edge in nonpareils and/or edible glitter. Place cookies on parchment or waxed paper until chocolate is set.

Have fun, it sounds like a great time to me!

(Edited to clean up all those weird spaces and formatting, ugh)

Annie

Thank you all for the input. The group DD invited are not going to bring their own dough to bake or the ingredients so I figured I would just make the doughs and go from there. DD get these ideas and I'm the one left figuring out the logistics.

Hmmm, sounds like my kids, they have great ideas and I try to make them happen, LOL. Grandkids too.

Annie

annie1992,

I hear ya! In my DD's defense, she has had a couple of rough years. Two years ago, she was diagnosed with breast cancer at 27 just after her son's 1st B-Day. Her SO bailed so she moved home with us. She is living life to the fullest and trying to cram everything in just in case. She has a high stress job and works 60 hours a week so I try to give her a little leeway but her brilliant ideas are exhausting! LOL

She has two parties scheduled at our home for this weekend. Saturday, Santa rides around town stopping at each house to visit with the kids. We have a house full of friends, children and grandparents coming for hot chocolate, cookies, wine and appetizers. Sunday we have her aunts (my SIL's), female cousins and friends coming for the cookie party with Mimosas, Bloody Mary's and brunch type appetizers. Oh and the guys will be having the usual football game get together Sunday as well with beer and appetizers.

Oh and we are decorating the tree Saturday morning. I will be looking forward to going back to work on Monday!

I make my gingerbread dough ahead and freeze it in discs like pastry dough. It's pretty rugged too and can take a lot of handling.

I think any recipe that calls for chilling the dough beforehand should work.

Gingerbread Men from 'Cooking for Christmas', 1950

1/2 c. sugar

1/2 c. shortening (I use butter)

1 unbeaten egg

3/4 c. molasses ( I often use half honey/half molasses)

1 tsp. soda

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. cloves

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. ginger (or 1 Tbs. finely grated fresh)

2 tsp. vinegar

3-3 1/2 c. flour

Combine all the ingredients except the flour & stir until thoroughly mixed.

Add enough flour to make a fairly stiff dough.

Wrap in waxed paper & chill in the refrigerator overnight.

Divide into 2-3 parts to make rolling out easier.

Roll out quite thin & cut.

Bake on parchment @ 375F - 8-10 minutes.

Decorate as desired.

LOL! So they're having a cookie baking party without doing anything to bake the cookies? You're a great mom to make all the dough and have it ready.

You can start making the very stable doughs like gingerbread or shortbread today. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap, and put in a plastic bag and they'll be well protected and fine.

Busy weekend, yikes! (I prefer busy actually) As long as I have a quit day/weekend following...

I've been working on my holiday treat box choices. I have the boxes!

This recipe is divided into 4, then each 4 are seasoned/flavored/colored differently. Rolled and chilled. For cut-out cookies. Many choices for decorating. It would be a good prep-ahead.

Saw this while I was searching for my cookie needs.

They could all be simple cut-outs.

I'm making for sure pokey, my savory crackers, and a new one to me on this video...the marbled tahini but I'm making them square rather than big rectangles. I have a bag of black sesame seed so I can make my own black tahini paste.

The honeycomb peanut butter shortbread bark looks good.

Sleevendog, they all look pretty good to me, and those pink and white striped squares are especially pretty.

moosemac, best of luck to your DD, she does have a life full of "stuff"! Wow. I hope she's fully recovered and stays that way, and that living life to the fullest just goes on for decades. You, however, need to go to work to rest!

Annie