reheating guide (from room temp or from frozen)
Reheating pudges from room temp:
- BEST: airfryer / oven: 300 deg F for 7-9 mins
- GOOD: microwave @ 50% power for 30-40 seconds
Store at room temp, ideally in airtight container.
Reheating from frozen: Your mileage may vary. Your equipment may run hotter or cooler than our testers'. In general, lower temps for longer time seem to fare better as Pudges are so large!
Storage Recommendations for freezing:
- Freeze your cookies right away to preserve them in their freshest state.
- Individually wrap before placing cookies into a freezer bag. Or vacuum seal.
- Store for up to 3 months in freezer.
These subjective assumptions were made by our testers:
- Freshy baked: 10/10 (the pinnacle of the Pudge experience)
- The ratings below (10 being most preferred, 1 being trash) represent the rating after reheating.
|
Method |
Temp & Time |
Rating & Recommendation |
|
Convection oven (fan on) |
270 F for 20 mins |
9/10 - Recommend. Heats uniformly; texture is warm and soft. You can cut the cookie to encourage slightly faster and more even heating as our testers did 10 mins into the heating process. |
|
Air fryer |
270 F for 20 mins |
9/10 - Recommend. Heats uniformly; texture is warm and soft. you can cut the cookie to encourage slightly faster and more even heating as our testers did 10 mins into the heating process. |
|
Thaw |
Overnight (or at minimum, a few hours) |
8/10 - Recommend. Texture and flavor are both similar to pre-freezing. |
|
Toaster oven (countertop) |
350F for 5 mins |
7.8/10 - Do not recommend. Texture changes substantially (crust becomes flakier). Heat distribution is uneven (center is cooler). |
|
Microwave |
1 minute |
4.5/10 - Do not recommend. For a filled cookie, the filing will boil before the rest of the cookie gets warm. Flavor becomes muted, and texture becomes muffin-like. Testers tasted the cookies again after letting the cookie cool; the texture was reconstituted but flavors remained muted. |
Equipment Used:
- Thermal imager: ATN thor 4
- Air fryer: Cuisinart TOA-70
- Microwave: Sharp SMC1131CB
Methodology:
All cookies were prepared from a single batch to ensure consistency. Pumpkin spice pudges were selected as the flavor for testing as it has cheesecake filling and would be hardest to achieve an even re-heating. In subjective evaluation, testers rate it with a subjective 10/10 score.
10 is the highest and most preferred score, and 1 denotes the lowest preference. Fresh cookies were consistently evaluated to have a perfect 10 of 10 score and represents the most preferred. Stored cookies retained a score of 9 of 10 in all aspects. This evaluation includes texture and flavor.
The score represents an average of 2 samplers. No evaluation deviated from average by more than 1 point.