Hey Besties! This is a topic that I receive a lot of inquiries about year-round, but especially when the holiday season is upon us! We all want to ensure the cookies we make stay as fresh as possible for as long as possible and are beautifully presented. Heat sealing your cookies offers many benefits that we’ll cover below. And while a heat sealer is not a sexy or particularly exciting purchase, it can really up your cookie game and even help you manage your busy schedule more efficiently! And honestly, it’s one of the best small investments you can make! Whether you’re a hobby baker or bakery business owner, let’s dive into everything you need to know to successfully heat seal your cookies!
Do I Really Need A Heat Sealer?
Years ago, we just used the self-sealing bags and they worked great! A heat sealer was not something on my radar that seemed necessary. And self-sealing bags are great in a pinch when you’ve got 1 second to package a cookie for someone! But pretty quickly, I learned that heat sealing our cookies not only improved the quality but made managing our orders and time so much easier.
For starters, heat sealed packaging definitely keeps your cookies fresh and softer for longer. Self-sealing bags are just not airtight. Our top priority is making sure our products taste as fresh and delicious as possible. If a heat sealer can extend the freshness of your product by days, it’s completely worth it, it my opinion!
Next, the ability to freeze decorated cookies, already packaged, without any risk of condensation reaching your icing, is a game changer! Many of the most talented cookiers decorate, package and freeze their cookies simply to be able to manage their schedule and volume of orders. Many even purposely freeze their cookies, even if only for 24 hours, because they are convinced the magic of the freezer makes their cookies softer for longer! Regardless of your motive, the ability to decorate, heat seal, freeze, thaw and sell has a HUGE time management benefit. If you’re not already freezing your cookies, THIS post will help.
The professional look of having heat sealed packaging is another big advantage. If you want your cookies to look their best, you should definitely be heat sealing. We talked about this a bit in THIS post all about packaging essentials.
And I think it’s worth mentioning that NOT having to deal with the self-sealing strips is worth the investment alone. 😂 Once you’ve bagged hundreds, or thousands, of cookies and had to peel off those little annoying strips, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.
And once you have a heat sealer, it’s hard to imagine not having one. Some bakers even use them to make smaller piping bags and other unique hacks!
What’s The Best Heat Sealer?
THIS is the heat sealer we use every day and it’s been a workhorse for us. It’s the most popular heat sealer in the cottage baking industry and does great work for a very small investment. And while it’s not pretty or fancy, it sure makes your cookie packaging look pretty and fancy! It’s super easy and safe to use and does the job to seal in the freshness!
Cookie Heat Sealing Video
Want to see exactly how I heat seal all of my cookies using this sealer? Here is a quick video showing you how I do it!
What Are The Best Bags?
Over the years, we have compared a dozen different brands of bags and THESE are the only bags we use! They are far superior to every other brand we’re tried. They are crystal clear, a heavier, professional weight and most importantly, they do not stick or cling to the cookies! Most of our cookies go into these 4×6 size bags, but we also commonly use the 5×7 bags, depending on our cookie size. If you regularly make decorated cookies that are 3.5″ or larger, you’ll want to use a 5×7 size for your cookies. We’ve even used the larger sizes for jumbo cookies!
I know what you’re thinking….and yes, we cut off the seal. We actually use pinking shears to trim the bags about 1/2″ inch above the heat seal. The main reason we do this is because when you heat seal, they are SEALED airtight. Cutting the excess bag off with pinking shears gives it a nice look and allows your customer to easy tear open the bag.
I also love having the best of both worlds…we almost always heat seal, but having the option to self-seal in a pinch is super helpful!
To Seal This Up…
See what I did there? I am all about sharing the best tools, products and strategies to help you up your cookie game! You work hard on your baked art and this is a simple way to ensure your work tastes and looks beautiful!
If this was helpful for you, please share! And of course, make sure you’ve subscribed to receive my weekly newsletter so you never miss out on a new recipe, tutorial, technique and free printables! Happy Baking, Bestie!