How I Make My Cookie Boxes
Tips and tricks that will save you
In 2019, I made my first cookie box. And then I stopped. As in, I stopped at one box. I carefully tucked the cookies in some nice Harry and David packaging my parents had lying around. And I don’t think I packaged up any to bring to neighbors or family. Whoops! This was right around the start of NYT Cooking’s era of increasingly-hyped Cookie Weeks, and I was excited to join in on the fun.
We’ve come a long way in the last six years! (You can watch last year’s video of me rating all my cookie boxes below.) And today? We are at peak cookie box fervor in the United States. Most baking creators and recipe developers are churning them out this time of year, and I see no problem with that except now … I have to up my game.
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I get so many questions in my DMs and comments when I post about cookie boxes, and I’m so grateful for them. I’m going to attempt to answer most of them in this post. So here they are: my tips for prepping, making, filling, packaging, and more!
Start earlier than you think you need to.
If you’re starting now, like I am, you’re already late. (Kidding, sort of.)
Make your list of recipients, check it twice.
Buy your boxes/tins early, especially if you’re shopping in person. I’ve been disappointed by stores selling out! Dollar stores and vintage/thrift shops are a great place to find cheap cookie tins. Your local baking or restaurant supply store should have them, too.
I usually buy 6x6-inch boxes for single folks and 8x8-inch boxes for couples or roommates. Scale up from there.
Do what is realistic for you.
Don’t look at what’s happening on social media and think that’s what you need to be doing. Mentally ill people like me who have chosen to compete in the Sugar and Butter X GAMES every year like this devote up to three or four full days to make these things happen.
If this is your first year, start out with three or four cookie offerings. I even recommend finding a shortbread recipe that you can make into several cookies and flavors. Jillian Barreca has a great one.
Make sure that for every recipe you make, there will be enough for everyone in the household to have one or at least half of one. I’ve seen people fight over one ginger molasses cookie.
Use the Cookie Box Matrix
While gaming out my cookie boxes last year, I was very concerned with variety. I wanted a visual way to organize my cookie offerings by flavor and texture to help me narrow down and decide on what made it in the box. An hour spent on Canva later and the Cookie Box Matrix was born!
On the X-axis, texture. On the Y-axis, flavor. The idea isn’t to get a cookie in every slot; more-so to make sure all your cookies aren’t in the same slot. And the most important thing is to remember that… this is all made up! You can read more about the Cookie Box Matrix here, but I’ll leave an example and a downloadable PDF for you to print out below. You can also use this Canva template I made to fill out or create your own version.
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