Chilling cookie dough before baking solidifies the fat in the cookies. As the cookies bake, the fat in the chilled cookie dough takes longer to melt than room-temperature fat. And the longer the fat remains solid, the less cookies spread.
For starters, chilling prevents cookies from spreading out too quickly once they’re in the oven. If you use a higher fat butter (like Kerrygold), chilling your dough is absolutely essential. Popping your dough in the fridge allows the fats to cool.
As a general rule of thumb, you should refrigerate cookie dough for at least 30 minutes and up to 24 hours.
“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.” So chilling the dough before baking means fluffier cookies with better consistency.
How long can I keep cookie dough in the refrigerator before baking? 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.
Chilling cookie dough makes the cookies much more flavorful, with that blissful caramelized butterscotch flavor, and it makes them thicker, chewier, and browner. In the above photo, you can see this play out with my Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe.
Water vapor escaping from the dough in combination with the carbon dioxide released by our baking soda is ultimately what makes our cookies light and airy.
Once cookie dough reaches 1/4 inch-thick, place the dough in the fridge to chill for 20 minutes. Chilling cookie dough before baking solidifies the fat in cookies and helps retain your cookies’ shape.
Let it sit for long enough—the famous Jacques Torres chocolate chip cookie, published in the New York Times, mandates a rest of at least 24 hours and up to 72—and the starches and proteins in the flour begin to break down, leading to more browning and caramelization.
Homemade cookie dough should be stored in small containers in the refrigerator for two to four days or freeze for two months.
Many cookie recipes call for long refrigeration times, but a finicky dough or a little extra chilling time can result in dough that’s as hard as a rock, and nearly impossible to work with. Merrill recommends putting dough near a warm stove, and pounding it with a rolling pin once it starts to soften.
When should you refrigerate dough?
When can I refrigerate my dough? Most bread recipes have two rises, a first rise (also called bulk fermentation), and a second or final rise. You can chill your dough during either the first or second rise.
Chill at least 1 hour or overnight.
Mistake: When cookies turn out flat, the bad guy is often butter that is too soft or even melted. This makes cookies spread. The other culprit is too little flour—don’t hold back and make sure you master measuring. Finally, cookies will also flatten if placed and baked on hot cookie sheets.
If you want to prevent spreading, chill your cookie dough in the fridge for 4-6 hours ideally. If you don’t have that much time, plan on chilling the dough for at least one hour to get an effect.
9 Tips to Remember
- Use Real Butter and Keep It Cool. The low melting point of butter may be what makes your cookies flat.
- Use Shortening.
- Chill Dough Twice.
- Use Parchment Paper or a Silicone Liner.
- Measure Precisely.
- Use Fresh Baking Soda.
- Use Optional Add-Ins.
- Buy an Oven Thermometer.
The role of vanilla in sweet baked goods is like the role of salt on the savory side: it enhances all the other flavors in the recipe. Without it, cookies and cakes tend to taste flat and bland. Forget to add the vanilla once, and you’ll probably never do it again!
Yolks, where all of the fat is in an egg, increase richness, tenderness and flavor. Therefore, if you put an extra egg, you will get a chewier cookie. I do it all the time. If you put less, you will get a more crumbly cookie.
So long as they end up evenly flat, that is; squashing cookies haphazardly under your palm means they may bake and brown unevenly. Still, if you care deeply (or even casually) about the look of your cookies, you can take the flattening step as an opportunity for enhancement. The bottom of a glass works fine, it’s true.
Baking requires precision, and if you find your homemade cookies are falling apart, then there’s a good chance you have been using too much flour (via Fine Cooking).
The dough can be made in advance, however if you refrigerate it overnight in an airtight container you may find that it is too firm to scoop and bake quicky in the morning.
How long does it take refrigerated dough to come to room temperature?
Dough that’s left to rise at room temperature typically takes between two and four hours to double in size. If left overnight, dough rises so high forcing it will likely collapse on the weight of itself, making the dough deflate. For best results always keep dough in the refrigerator when leaving to rise overnight.
Tough – For rolled cookies, your dough can become “tough” by adding too much flour to your pin or counter before rolling it out. To avoid this, try using as little flour as possible while preparing to roll your dough.
Will dough rise after being refrigerated?
Since yeast is more active when it’s warm, putting yeasted dough in a refrigerator or chilling it slows the yeast’s activity, which causes dough to rise at a slower rate. However, it will not cause the dough to reverse the rise that has already taken place. The yeast is still alive.
Is it better to let dough rise in the fridge?
Proofing in the refrigerator is widely considered to be a superior proofing method that improves taste and structure. This is due to the slower rate at which yeast works when exposed to cold temperatures. The result is a longer and more stable rise, which extends the amount of time for flavor to develop.
Can I leave the dough overnight?
It is possible to leave bread dough to rise overnight. This needs to be done in the refrigerator to prevent over-fermentation and doughs with an overnight rise will often have a stronger more yeasty flavour which some people prefer.
Does edible cookie dough need to be refrigerated? Edible cookie dough should not be left out of the fridge for more than two hours. Leaving perishable food at a temperature of 40-140F for over two hours increases the chance of sickness resulting from bacteria growth.
Carbon dioxide gas and water vapor form the bubbles which make cookies rise. Rising doesn’t just make cookies taller. It also opens up space to keep the cookie from becoming too dense. Salt slows down the decomposition of baking soda, so the bubbles don’t get too big.
How to make cookies spread
- Do not refrigerate your cookie dough before shaping the cookies.
- Use melted butter rather than softened room temperature butter.
- Increase the fat content in the cookies.
- Use more white sugar and less brown sugar.
- Make sure your baking powder is not old.
- Add more liquid to your batter.
How To Make Thicker Cookies (Using 10 Simple Tips)
- 1 – Refrigerate Your Cookie Dough.
- 2 – Use Room-Temperature Butter.
- 3 – Use the Correct Fat.
- 4 – Focus on Your Mixing Technique.
- 5 – Add Less Granulated Sugar.
- 6 – Add More Flour.
- 7 – Use Bleached Flour.
- 8 – Check Your Rising Agent.
For softer, chewier cookies, you will want to add much less granulated sugar, slightly more brown sugar, and a fair bit less butter. For cakey cookies, you will often be including even less butter and sugar.
“Most people think the butter should be so soft that it’s broken down, but the most important thing is that you want a little bit of give to the butter.” If you want to get technical, she says the precise temperature should be between 63 and 68 degrees — where it’s cool to touch, but your finger can leave an indent.
Use a silicone baking mat or parchment paper. Coating your baking sheet with nonstick spray or butter creates an overly greasy foundation, causing the cookies to spread. I always recommend a silicone baking mat because they grip onto the bottom of your cookie dough, preventing the cookies from spreading too much.
Brown sugar, meanwhile, is dense and compacts easily, creating fewer air pockets during creaming—that means that there’s less opportunity to entrap gas, creating cookies that rise less and spread more. With less moisture escaping via steam, they also stay moist and chewy.
What happens if you add too much vanilla extract?
It’s one of those ingredients where a little goes a long way. Taste-wise, the result of adding too much vanilla extract to a recipe is an overwhelming vanilla/alcohol flavor and a bad aftertaste. If you’ve just added a little too much, you can counteract it by sweetening the recipe.
Why is cinnamon used in baking?
Apart from flavor, cinnamon is also used in commercial baking to impart a specific color to a product. “For certain purposes, it may be desirable to give a baked product high cinnamon colouring and yet only relatively mild cinnamon flavouring,” write J. Thomas and P. P. Duethi in Handbook of Herbs and Spices.
While butter contains air pockets that help it retain its shape, oil is more compact. You can’t really alter it from its original state. Not to mention, using a flavorful oil such as olive oil in a cookie might give you a baked product that’s just a little on the funkier side. Naturally, you can expect a softer dough.
Vinegar is a surprisingly common ingredient in baked goods, considering that it has such a sharp flavor. But as an acid, vinegar is often included in cake and cookie batters to react with baking soda and start the chemical reaction needed to produce carbon dioxide and give those batters a lift as they bake.
Cookies made with only butter may not rise as much and may spread a bit more, but the edges will be crispier and will have a rich buttery taste. Cookies made with only shortening will result in a cookie that bakes higher and holds its shape better during baking.
Most recipes suggest that you flatten the dough balls before baking. In general, if you roll the cookie dough into balls, then your cookie dough probably needs to be flattened before baking. However, they are your cookies. If you like your cookies to be puffy and thick in the center, then leave them alone.
One of the most common reasons why cookies didn’t spread out in the oven is because you added too much flour. Cookies rely on the perfect ratio of butter to flour in order to spread just the right amount when baked. It’s very easy to over measure flour when using cup measurements.
Follow our simple tips and techniques and you’ll turn out perfect cookies every time.
- Bake Better Cookies.
- Soften Your Butter.
- Creaming Butter.
- Measure Your Flour Correctly.
- Line Your Pans With Parchment Paper.
- Add Eggs One at a Time.
- Add Flour or Dry Ingredients in Batches.
- Fold in Chocolate Chips by Hand.
While brown sugar keeps your cookies moist and soft, white sugar and corn syrup will help your cookies spread and crisp in the oven. Using more white sugar in your cookies will result in a crispier end product. To achieve a crispy cookie, skip the rest in the fridge.
Most cookies have top crusts that remain relatively soft and flexible as the cookies set during baking. However, if the top surface dries out before the cookie is finished spreading and rising, it hardens, cracks, and pulls apart, producing an attractive crinkly, cracked exterior.
Why Do Cookies Get Hard? Like all baked treats, cookies are subject to getting stale. Over time, the moisture in the cookies evaporates, leaving them stiff and crumbly. It’s the same thing that happens to breads, muffins, and other baked goods.
Unless otherwise noted, don’t store cookies in the refrigerator: The cool air can rob cookies of their moisture and make them taste bland. In general, store cookies at room temperature or freeze them, as specified above.
Water vapor escaping from the dough in combination with the carbon dioxide released by our baking soda is ultimately what makes our cookies light and airy.
“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.” So chilling the dough before baking means fluffier cookies with better consistency.
Can you bake dough straight from the fridge?
Yes, you can bake dough straight from the refrigerator – it does not need to come to room temperature. The dough has no problems from being baked cold and will bake evenly when baked in a very hot oven. I’ve baked many loaves straight from the fridge with great results, and haven’t noticed any problems.
How Long to Refrigerate Cookie Dough. 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, says Haught Brown.