Cookie Dough Tips & Tricks (2024)

FAQs

Cookie Dough Tips & Tricks? ›

Chilling your dough beforehand – Chilling cookie dough keeps it sturdy as it bakes into delicious cookies. This practice also heightens the flavor profile of your cookies and gives your ingredients time to meld.

For cookies that are high in butter content, this step is crucial and prevents them from melting into thin disks while baking. For most cookie recipes, it takes at least two hours in the fridge to fully chill the dough; an annoyingly long time when you're in the mood to eat cookies ASAP.

Baking cookies quickly in a hot oven – at 375 degrees F as opposed to a lower temperature – will make for soft results. They'll bake fast instead of sitting and drying out in the oven's hot air. Ever so slightly underbaking your cookies will give you softer results than cooking them the full amount the recipe says.

You may notice visible pockets of flour, streaks of butter, or uneven coloration. When overmixed, though, cookie dough will feel dense, greasy, heavy, and warm. It may be tough to roll out or work with, just like overmixed pie dough.

"Overmixing your dough will result in flatter, crispier cookies," Cowan said. If you overmix, you will end up aerating (adding air to) the dough, which causes the cookies to rise and then fall, leaving you with flat cookies.

For a hand mixer, you will need to beat for 5 or 6 minutes. If you are using a stand mixer, it will be approximately 3 minutes on medium speed (tested on a KitchenAid, speed 4). If you have a Bosch mixer, use the dough hook and beat for 3 minutes on speed 3.

As a general rule of thumb, you should refrigerate cookie dough for at least 30 minutes and up to 24 hours. More than that, and you won't see a noticeable difference in the final product. Once the dough has chilled, let it warm up at room temperature until it's just pliable (about 5 to 10 minutes).

What does adding milk to cookie dough do? ›

The moisture contributed by the milk will also increase spread and hydrate more of the starches in the flour. These hydrated (gelatinized) starches support the structure of the air pocket wall, keeping the cookies from collapsing once cooled. By holding more water, they also help keep the cookies softer over time.

To make the recipe with a mix-and-fold method, stir together the ingredients, then perform a bowl fold three to four times in the first hour. As you make those 10 to 12 strokes, working your way around the bowl, you'll feel the dough organizing itself, strengthening, and tightening.

With a lightly floured rolling pin, roll the dough out to about 1/4-inch thickness. Use more flour if the dough seems too sticky. The rolled-out dough can be any shape, as long as it is evenly 1/4-inch thick.

The Quality Ingredients

Ingredients like butter, eggs and sugar can either make sweet cookie perfection or something you wouldn't want to share with your friends and family. Always look for a cookie that's made with premium ingredients. If the cookie contains some organic ingredients even better.

Baking Powder. The type of leavening you use in your cookies doesn't just help them rise while baking, it affects their texture and structure too. Baking soda in cookies yields a denser cookie with craggy tops, while baking powder causes cookies to rise higher during baking for a cakier texture.

The science is simple: According to the flour authorities over at Bob's Red Mill, cornstarch can help “soften the rigid proteins of the flour, resulting in a light and chewy dessert.” “The cornstarch complements the flour in absorbing the liquids, but won't develop gluten structure like the flour will,” stresses ...

Too much flour causes the dough to become dry and crumbly, which prevents it from flattening out during baking. As a result, your cookies will stay in their original shape instead of spreading out into nice circles.