Why Do We Chill Cookie Dough Before Baking? (2024)

FAQs

Do you have to chill cookie dough before baking? ›

Refrigerating the dough allows the flour to fully hydrate and helps to make the cookie dough firmer. Firm dough prevents the cookies from spreading too much, which is why chilling the dough is a crucial step for cut-out and rolled cookies.

Q: HOW LONG SHOULD I CHILL THE DOUGH? Anywhere from 24 to 72 hours. The longer you chill the dough, the more flavor will develop. The flour will also absorb more of the moisture so the thicker and chewier the final texture will be.

Stop the Spread!

When you chill your cookie dough, it allows the butter to stiffen back up. A firmer dough will stop it from spreading in the oven. This is great for cutout cookies, but it is also great for drop cookies. It gives you a loftier, chewier result when you bake them up.

Here's what our Test Kitchen recommends when quickly chilling cookie dough in the freezer: Place the cookie dough in the freezer for one-quarter of the recommended refrigerator time. The dough can be wrapped in plastic, scooped into balls for baking on a cookie sheet, or left in the mixing bowl, covered.

Resting your dough in the refrigerator will almost always yield better results. But why? Chilling your cookie dough in the refrigerator after mixing it allows the flour to hydrate and gives the other ingredients time to blend, resulting in a richer, more well-rounded flavor profile.

The primary reason for a brief resting period to redistribute the liquid in the dough. While the dough sits, turning from loose and soft to drier and more scoopable, the flour is hydrating, yielding cookies that will bake and brown more evenly.

Chill Your Dough at Least Once

Cutout cookie dough recipes often call for the dough to be chilled for at least 30 minutes before breaking out the rolling pin.

It depends on your goals, it's not "wrong" to do it either way. i want it to be thin and chewy. Taking it out from the fridge and go straight to the oven making it thick and not spreading very much.

While store-bought cookie dough contains preservatives that may extend its shelf life somewhat, homemade cookie dough will only last in the refrigerator for about three days stored in an airtight container. (If your store-bought cookie dough doesn't have an expiration date, add a week or so to the “best by” date.)

Chilling cookie dough helps prevent spreading. The colder the dough, the less the cookies will over-spread into greasy puddles. You'll have thicker, sturdier, and more solid cookies.

Can I bake cookie dough straight from the fridge? ›

"When your dough is refrigerated, the butter hardens. So when you bake them, they spread less and hold their shape better," adds Epperson. "Which means a better likelihood of a soft, chewy cookie in the center." Chilling the dough creates fluffier cookies with better consistency.

The dough is rolled into a log, wrapped in plastic or waxed paper, and chilled until firm – an hour or two. This allows you to cut cookies cleanly and evenly before placing them on the baking sheet. If your cookie recipe tells you to chill the dough before rolling it out or cutting it into slices, do so.

You can start shaping the dough straight out of the fridge. The warmth of your hands and motion of shaping will heat up the smaller pieces of dough fairly quickly, so there's no need to perform folds or wait for the dough to come to room temperature on its own.

After chilling, let your cookie dough sit at room temperature for about 10 minutes (or more, depending how long the dough has chilled) before rolling into balls and baking. Sometimes after refrigeration, cookie dough can be too hard to roll/handle. If a recipe calls for chilling the cookie dough, don't skip that step.

Making your cupcakes and cookies a uniform size is a matter of scooping out the mixture equally before baking.

A lot of cookie recipes use 350°F as the preferred temperature, but if you lower it to 325°F, your cookies will cook a little slower and retain more moisture. Shorten Your Baking Time Another way to keep your cookies chewy and tender is to try baking them for less time.

So how long is cookie dough good for in the fridge? You can keep the leftover dough in the fridge for up to five days and in the freezer for three months. However, if they stay in there too long, they're likely to get hard and crumbly when you bake them.

If you make your cookie dough ahead of time or you buy premade dough, it may dry out in the fridge. The refrigerator is a very drying place as it is constantly circulating air in order to remain cold. The air will quickly dry any moisture in your cookie dough, changing the texture of the dough completely.

Most cookie dough can be refrigerated, well-wrapped, for three to five days before baking. If you want to make it farther in advance, freeze the dough.

Does Chilling cookie dough make it better? ›

The Best Cookie Flavor

Resting your dough in the fridge allows for the ingredients to meld together, resulting in an undeniably better flavor profile in cookies baked from chilled cookie dough.

So yes, resting your cookie dough makes better cookies. If you can't swing an overnight rest, we recommend chilling your cookie dough in the fridge for at least 1-2 hours before scooping and baking. If you really don't want to wait, shape your dough into balls and freeze them for 15 minutes, then pop them in the oven.

You overwork the dough.

If you mix (or roll out) cookie dough too much, you'll add excess air to the dough, causing it to rise and then fall flat in the oven. Overmixing the dough can also lead to excess gluten development, resulting in dense cookies.

Cool down your dough for a tastier, chewier cookie.

As little as 30 minutes in your fridge or freezer can help your cookie brown better, spread less, and develop a richer chewy texture. There's a few reasons why, but one important part is it gives the butter in your dough a chance to firm up before baking.