SLICE AND DICE: Icebox cookies, from easy bakes to culinary art
- Cinda Chavich
- Nov 1
- 7 min read
Nostalgic and convenient, icebox (a.k.a. refrigerator) cookies are as practical and fun to make today they were when you were a kid.
By CINDA CHAVICH
Icebox cookies — first created a century ago to celebrate the new age of home refrigeration — are having a modern moment.
Nostalgic and convenient, icebox (a.k.a. refrigerator) cookies are easy to make with everyday ingredients, the technique as practical for busy families today it was in your grandmother’s day. With a log of cookie dough chilling in the fridge, you can literally have warm cookies, fresh from the oven, in minutes.
The first slice-and-bakes were simple sugar cookies, but the genre has morphed over the decades, from the fancy sliced pinwheel and checkerboard cookies popular in the 1950s to Pillsbury’s supermarket selections — tubes of chocolate chip, peanut butter or sugar cookie dough with seasonal designs, pre-sliced and ready to bake.
Now creative bakers are going viral on social media with their own intricate designs, taking icebox cookies into whimsical new territory.
COOKIE QUEEN
Nicole MacDougall of local Smiley Drop Baking is queen of the elaborate slice-and-bake genre, with colourful designs ranging from cute Miss Piggy and Betty Boop cookies to pretty cherry blossom biscuits, and her eponymous Smiley Face bakes.
The Smiley Bread and cookies, with the sunny yellow happy face baked right into the mix, are her calling card.
“I have no idea where I got the idea, but one day and I made a smiley face in the dough,” she says. “It was definitely a lightbulb moment. After making the cookie I challenged myself to make it into a bread, and after a couple attempts, I had settled on the design and weights I use today.”
MacDougall perfected her malleable cookie dough recipe — “a hybrid dough, between sugar-sable-shortbread” — during the pandemic and now adds a new playful cookie to the selection of pastries she sells at The Moss Street Market every week.
She’s designed cookies with custom “portraits” and company logos, even Palestinian flag cookies to raise money for charity. Characters from The Simpsons, snowflakes and Santa hats have been popular motifs, too.
All are created without molds or cutters, and coloured naturally with fruit and vegetable powders, tea and spices.
Though time consuming to make, she says slicing a cookie roll is always a magical moment. Her baking videos — with their slicing “reveals” — have gone viral, and it’s why she offers frozen Smiley Cookie rolls to bake at home.
“I just want people to share the experience,” she says. “It’s magic!”
Aspiring cookie artists can learn more at baking workshops with MacDougall in November, and December, when she’ll share her recipes and tips.
VARIATIONS ON THE THEME
You’ll find old-fashioned slice-and-bake cookie recipes in vintage community cookbooks and all over the internet.
The Joy of Cooking first published its Refrigerator Cookies recipe in 1931 with several variations, flavoured with brown sugar and coconut, melted chocolate, molasses, and even lacey cookies made with rolled oats.
Whether you use a sugar cookie, shortbread or French sable dough for your roll-and-slice cookies, there are a few standard steps. Cream, don’t beat, butter, don’t overwork the dough and make sure it’s chilled for several hours before slicing to fully hydrate the flour.
Eggs add structure but the formula is simple — butter, flour, sugar, egg and salt — with variations using powdered or brown sugar, cake flour, corn or potato starch, and baking powder for tenderness. Vanilla is standard but you can flavour with other essences, rum, lemon zest, lavender and chocolate. Tint the dough naturally with matcha, dehydrated beets or fruit powders, cocoa, turmeric or saffron.
Modern bakers flavour their dough with salted caramel or espresso, and stud their cookies with freeze-dried raspberries, pistachios and cocoa nibs. Mini chocolate or butterscotch chips, candied ginger, apricots and dried cranberries are popular additions, too.
For added interest, coat the cookies with something crunchy or sparkly — think coloured sanding sugar, finely chopped nuts and sprinkles. Just brush chilled rolls with egg wash and roll in coatings before slicing and baking.
Once baked, cookies can be sandwiched with fillings like jam, lemon curd, hazelnut cream or dulce de leche.
THE BOTTOM LINE
The true joy of the icebox cookie is the ease with which you can alter the recipe to create a wonderful selection.
I loved the flexible icebox cookie recipe from The Complete Canadian Living Cookbook and baking guru Anna Olson’s tender Icebox Meltaway Cookies.
I baked cookies with walnuts and candied citrus peel, chocolate cookies with white chocolate chips and tender shortbreads shot with chewy dried blueberries. Next time I may try a rolled pinwheel cookie, but I’ll leave the intricate cartoon characters and fancy designs to the experts like MacDougall.
Her best advice? Just have fun, be creative and let your designs and flavour combinations evolve as you bake.
“I very much do not subscribe to the ‘cookie must be round’ propaganda!” she adds, noting sometimes her smiley faces are perfectly symmetrical, and sometimes she discovers a crooked, smirking grin when she slices.
Whatever recipe you choose, icebox cookies take the stress out of baking.
It’s a holiday miracle!
RECIPES
ICEBOX COOKIES
From The Complete Canadian Living Cookbook (and their very thorough test kitchens) comes this basic “butter and sugar rich dough”, traditionally studded with candied cherries for Christmas, but “you can add to it or dress it up as your whims dictate”. Easy to colour and mold into more complex designs, it’s a classic and also available with other icebox cookie recipes at www.canadianliving.com
1 cup (225 g) butter, softened
1 cup (200 g) granulated sugar
1 egg
2 tsp (5 ml) vanilla
2 2/3 cup (650 ml) all-purpose flour
½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp (1 ml) salt
¾ cup (175 ml) chopped candied red or green cherries (or other additions)
In a large bowl, beat the butter with sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. Stir in into butter mixture in two additions.
Stir in cherries (or an equal amount of your favourite additions: mini chocolate or butterscotch chips, chopped dried fruit or crystalized ginger, chopped pistachios, pecans, almonds or hazelnuts).
Divide dough into thirds. Place one at a time on a large piece of waxed paper or parchment, and using the paper as a guide, roll each into 8-inch-long logs. Remove paper, wrap in plastic, twisting ends to seal. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours or until firm. Refrigerate for up to 3 days or freeze in an airtight container for up to 3 weeks before baking. Let frozen logs stand at room temperature for 20 minutes before slicing.
To bake, slice into 1/4 inch (5 mm) thick slices and place about 2 inches (5 cm) apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake at 375 F for 10-12 minutes until lightly browned. Let cool on plans on racks for 5 minutes, then transfer to racks and let cool completely. Layer between parchment paper in airtight container and store at room temperature for up to 5 days or freeze up to 2 weeks. Makes about 7 dozen cookies.
VARIATION:
Double Chocolate Cookies: Decrease flour to 2 ¼ cups (530 ml) and add ½ cup (120 ml) cocoa powder to flour mixture. Substitute 5 oz. (3/4 cup) chopped white chocolate (or mini chips) for the cherries. Bake 10-15 minutes.
ANNA OLSON’S ICEBOX MELTAWAY COOKIES
A tender shortbread cookie from Anna Olson, inspired by the cookies her mother made every holiday season with candied cherries and walnuts. You’ll find her updated version, made with dried blueberries, in her book, Baking Day with Anna Olson, or tune into her Oh Yum with Anna Olson channel on YouTube to watch her create this family favourite.
1 cup (225 g) unsalted butter, room temperature
½ cup (65 g) icing sugar
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
1 tsp (5 ml) vanilla extract
1½ cups (225 g) all-purpose flour
½ cup (95 g) potato starch
½ tsp (2 ml) fine salt
¾ cup (175 mL) dried fruits, nuts or other additions (see note)
Beat the butter and icing sugar by hand for at least 1 minute, until well blended and fluffy. Beat in the lemon zest and vanilla. Sift the flour, potato starch and salt together in a separate bowl and add all at once to combine. Stir in any additions. For icebox cookies, shape the dough into two logs, about 1½ inches (3.5 cm) across. Wrap and chill until firm, about 2 hours (or freeze and thaw in the fridge overnight before baking).
Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C) and line two baking trays with parchment paper.
Slice the cookies into ¼-inch (6 mm) slices and arrange them on the baking trays, leaving 1 inch (2.5 cm) between them (they will not spread).
Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until they just begin to show signs of browning at the edges.
Let the cookies cool completely on the baking trays on cooling racks. The cookies will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days.
The baked cookies can be frozen for up to 3 months or, even better, freeze the unbaked cookie dough logs and thaw overnight in the fridge before baking. Makes 4 to 5 dozen cookies.
NOTE: These are delicate cookies so choose dried fruits, nuts or other additions with a texture to match. Possibilities include chopped dried cherries, cranberries, dried apricots, candied ginger, currants, candied citrus peel, dried blueberries, chopped walnuts, pecans, pistachios, and mini chocolate chips.
This food feature originally appeared in Edible Vancouver Island magazine
©CindaChavich2025
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