refrigerator cookie

3.3

A small sweet made from dough shaped into a roll, kept cold, sliced, and baked

noun
/rɪˈfrɪdʒəˌreɪtər ˈkʊki/

: galleta de refrigerador

You just slice the refrigerator cookie dough and bake it when you want fresh cookies.

Examples

I love making refrigerator cookies during the holidays.
My grandmother always kept a batch of refrigerator cookies in the freezer for unexpected guests.
The recipe calls for chilling the refrigerator cookie dough overnight before slicing.
Have you tried my refrigerator cookie recipe?
My grandmother's famous refrigerator cookies are always a hit during the holidays.
To prepare refrigerator cookies, shape the dough into a log and chill it before slicing.
After chilling the dough for several hours, we sliced the refrigerator cookies and baked them in the oven.

Surface Forms

refrigerator cookie singular

refrigerator cookies plural

Morphology

refrigerator + cookie

A B1 learner who knows 'refrigerator' and 'cookie' can infer that this is a kind of cookie associated with refrigeration (i.e., chilled or prepared using the fridge), so the broad sense is predictable from the constituents. However the precise production method (dough shaped into a roll, chilled until firm, then sliced and baked) is a specific culinary procedure not fully recoverable from the two words alone, so the expression is only partially transparent.

Etymology

Refrigerator cookie comes from a simple kitchen trick: cooks roll the dough into a log and chill it in the refrigerator, then slice and bake the pieces when they want fresh cookies. So the name links the refrigerator and the cookie, and it means a cookie that is made ahead and 'ready to bake' when needed.