Shipping Cookie Gifts

How to ship cookies for gifts and care packages

This year the holiday budget was a little tight, so I decided to make everyone cookie baskets for Christmas.

For our nearby friends and family I picked up some round, decorative plastic boxes. I used cupcake papers and aluminum foil to separate the different types of cookies and arrange them nicely.

Packing up bundles of pretty cookies to give as a gift is not too difficult to do when your friends and family are local, but much of my family lives over 2000 miles away. It took a bit of creative packaging, but I was successful at shipping cookie gifts cross-country. Let me show you how I did it so you can ship your on cookie gifts for holidays and care packages.

Choosing the right cookies

Choose your favorite cookies for this project, because almost* any cookie will do. Give a big batch of your favorite kind of cookie, or make an assortment and let them try a variety of your homemade baked goods.

*If you plan to ship your cookies in the mail, choose cookies that are on the denser and thicker side. Treats that are especially thin or fragile can be tasty, but probably wont make it thru the mail. The cookies pictured held up well in shipping.

For my gift baskets this year, I made gingerbread cookies, snowball cookies, chocolate chip cookies, fudge, and peanut brittle. I’ve pinned all of the recipes for my favorite treats here, so check out and follow my cookie, candy, and crafty eats boards for ideas on home-cooked gifts.

Packaging materials

If you are mailing your cookies, you are going to need a few supplies. You’ll need:

Carefully wrap between 6 and 12 of each type of cookie in cellophane. Next, wrap that bundle of cookies again, this time loosely with in aluminum foil. Gently mold the foil around the cookies to make a block and keep the cookies from sliding around inside the bundle. Place this double-wrapped cookie bundle in a Ziploc bag. Repeat this process with the rest of the cookies that you want to ship. Place them in the shipping box, filling any empty spaces in the box with cellophane or other packing filler to make sure the cookie bundles don’t slide around in the box. I added a gift wrapped pair of handmade mittens to the box, as well. Tape up the box and you’re ready to get a shipping label and mail your cookies.

Shipping cookie gifts

I used USPS three day priority shipping to save a few dollars, but it would probably be even better to use one day shipping.

After packing up all the cookies and treats in the box, I taped it shut and wrote FRAGILE in large capital letters with a big red marker on two sides of the box.

I shipped one package in a USPS flat rate box, and another in a standard brown shipping box. Both were successful, so use what you have available.

How they arrived

After shipping these cookies over 2000 miles from Virginia to Colorado, I expected to loose a few cookies to breakage along the way. Trucks and airplanes are bouncy, so I thought at least a few would be lost. Lucky for me, all of the cookies this year arrived in good shape. I know using the aluminum foil as a protective cushion for shipping the cookies really helped. But, I think a major part of the success of this gift project was because I was lucky with my postal carrier for USPS. The boxes had been treated very carefully. I hope your postal worker is as kind and careful as ours.

Did you try it? Let me know how your luck was with shipping cookie gifts. What kind of cookies did you send in your gift or care package? Did they get there in good shape? Let me know in the comments below.