How To Freeze Baked Goods That Keep Super Tasty

Learn in this detailed guide on how to freeze baked goods and how to thaw them so they keep fresh and mouth-watering. Bake delicious cakes, cookies, and desserts. Enjoy them later! –

Hey ninja baking mom! Did you enjoy the post on how to freeze doughs and batters? Great! Then here comes more.

Did you ever throw extra baked goods into the freezer just to get them out one day spoiled and not-so-yummy? Like a waffle that now tastes a bit like the fish that was in the same freezer drawer? Fear no more! Keep in mind that there are a few things to consider when freezing baking goods. After reading this guide on freezing pastries you will never have to deal with fish waffles again!

Again, there are some general rules on how to freeze baked goods. Let’s see…

How to freeze baked goods and pastries: General rules

Rule of thumb: Freeze as fast as possible, defrost as slow as possible.
Freeze portions of baked goods that are not too large. It should be an amount that your family can finish off in a day or two.
Do not freeze baking goods for a second time.
Pack everything carefully in freezer-suitable, airtight packages. That way they will not take on flavors from the environment.
Separate baked goods like sponge cake layers, pancakes, waffles, or chewy cookies with foil or baking paper.
Baking goods should go into the freezer when still fresh and slightly warm. That way they come out best! But you can still freeze leftovers that are completely cooled.
Put goods for freezing to the coldest spot in the freezer, e.g. the bottom or a special super frost section.
Let goods freeze for 12-24 hours (depending on size) before finally storing them in some other part of the freezer.
Check your freezer manual for how much you can freeze at a time.
Cool freezer down before packing with a lot of baking goods to freeze. Some freezers have a special setting to do so.
Label the frozen pastries with a date. That way you can check if it’s still good to enjoy. You will find a table in this post with directions of how long pastries keep fresh and tasty.

Step 1: Bake your favorite cake!

A great step to get started. Bake as you would usually do.

Baking goods should be frozen when they are still a bit warm and fresh. So, ideally, you know how much of your pastries is supposed to go into the freezer. You can still freeze leftovers. But for best outcomes, you might want to go about freezing baking goods with a strategy. For example, you can bake twice as much as you need, then freeze half of it.

Now, the great news is: Most cakes and pastries freeze well. If you freeze and defrost them properly, they will almost be as if you made them fresh from scratch! (Exception: Pastries with lots of egg-white like macaroons or with delicate cream do not freeze well.)

Really, you don’t need special recipes for baked goods that freeze well. Most of them do freeze well anyway.

How cool is that? Stock up on all your family’s favorite baking goodies. If you freeze individual pieces of cake you can even pull out every family member’s favorite without the hassle of baking three different cakes at a time.

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You can start making holiday cookies any time of the year and when the time comes, you pull out a super large variety of cookies for the holidays. Without losing your mind!

How to prepare baked goods for freezing

If you know that something you baked is going into the freezer then freeze it while fresh and even slightly warm. Yes, that is an exception. Usually only completely cooled down food goes into the freezer. But I learned this freezer hack from a patissier and it’s working great. Don’t geek out over that, though. You can still freeze cooled leftover baked goods and they will keep fresh, too.

Wrap individual pieces for a quick snack. Or you wrap up the complete uncut cake or bread. This is up to you and how you want to use the food after defrosting.

How to freeze frosted cake

Yes, you can totally freeze frosted cake. When it comes to thawing frosted cake you will have to wait until it is defrosted at room temperature. This can take several hours for an entire cake.

You can also freeze individual pieces of frosted cake. Separate cake pieces with parchment paper and pack them carefully so that they can’t get crushed.

How long do baked goods keep fresh and tasty in the freezer

Here is a handy table that shows you how to long to freeze baked goods and how to thaw baked goods. (You’ll find the table to print out in the baking guide in the resource library for subscribers.)

In the last column “Months it keeps fresh” you can see exactly how long you can freeze baked goods for best results. They might be edible longer but you should try to use them before that time limit to have yummy baked goods out of the freezer. If you want to freeze baked goods that are not in this chart, keeping them for 3 months at max is a good rule of thumb.

How to keep your freezer organized so you can freeze baked goods and find them later

Ok. For disclosure, my freezer is not a good example of an organized freezer. When I purge items every once in a while, I want to cry because of all the good food wasted. Shame on me!

But One Crazy House has your back. In this great post with 16 Tips On How To Organize Your Freezer you will find freezer hacks you haven’t thought of yet!

Finally, print this free freezer inventory sheet by A Bowl Full Of Lemons (no sign-up required). I suggest that you replace “date frozen” with “use by”, but this is up to you! With such an inventory sheet you can easily keep track of the frozen baked goods you have in stock.

Now, have fun in the kitchen and know that you can freeze baked goods and enjoy them later with lots of yum! Happy freezing!

Other posts of in the ninja baking hacks series:

How to easily freeze batters and doughs

How to easily build a no-refrigeration baking pantry

Baking Ingredients Substitutions to bake anytime you want