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.
Most of the time, cookies need to cool for around five to ten minutes before they can be moved and consumed. But it’s not as much of a cut and dry answer as you may think.
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. After 72 hours the dough will begin to dry out and you risk it going bad.
Cookies baked after chilling the dough (for as little as 30 minutes) became chewy, and progressively more flavorful with longer aging.
The more you bake it the crisper it’ll be. For a classic chocolate chip, most of the time you’re looking for that contrast between a crisp edge and a chewy center. This can be tricky because the cookie will seem under-baked on the cookie sheet but will firm up as it cools.
Most cookies are still soft when done (they harden as they cool) and will continue to bake on the cookie sheet once removed from the oven. Remove cookies from the cookie sheet as soon as they are firm enough to transfer, using a spatula, to a cooling rack or paper towels to finish cooling.
Why You Need to Chill Your Cookie Dough. 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.
Refrigerating the dough allows the flour to fully hydrate, which (in addition to chilling the butter) helps to make the cookie dough firmer, says baker and food stylist Jason Schreiber, who recently published Fruit Cake: Recipes for the Curious Baker ($21.85, amazon.com).
Resting cookie dough in the fridge can make it harder to scoop out into individual portions. To counter this, scoop and roll your cookie dough before putting it in the fridge. Scooping freshly mixed dough is so much easier, and you’ll still get the benefits of resting the dough!
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.
As a general rule, any cookie dough left on the counter at room temperature will be good for 2-4 hours but then may risk going bad, especially if it is already past its “best by” date. The cool, dark, air-free container in your fridge or freezer will be the best place to maximize the lifespan of your cookie dough.
→ Follow this tip: Chill sugar cookie dough in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes, or in the freezer for 15 minutes. The dough will be so much easier to work with! It will roll out nicely, and if you’re making cut-outs, chilled dough will help you get clean, sharp edges.
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.
Make sure cookies cool completely before storing. Store them at room temperature in an air-tight container, like Tupperware. Store different flavors separately. Over time, strongly flavored cookies like molasses or mint will seep into other cookies, so if possible store each flavor in its own container.
To cool cookies without a rack, remove cookies from the baking sheet and allow them to cool on paper towels on the countertop.
Putting a slice of fresh white bread in the container with the cookies will help the cookies stay soft: fresh bread is moist, and that slice will give up its moisture for the greater good: keeping the cookies from drying out. We recommend white bread so that no flavor is transferred to the cookies.
However, it may look a bit puffy or soft in the center, too. This is normal and simply means that the cookie may continue baking on the sheet and rack once removed from the oven. Taking cookies out of the oven at this stage will make them softer and chewier. Whereas, overcooking can create brittleness.
Problem #4: Pale and soft cookies
They were probably baked from a good consistency dough but ended up a bit under baked and raw on the inside. Either the oven temperature is too low or they were taken out too soon. When baking always keep an eye on your cookies and take them out when they’re golden.
Most recipes recommend chilling cookie dough for several hours in the refrigerator, but the good news is that you can use your freezer in a pinch. Better Homes and Gardens says that you can freeze cookie dough for one-fourth of the recommended refrigeration time with good results.
When you’re making cookies, make a double batch of dough. Wrap half in a sheet of parchment paper—roll it and twist the ends—and store it in the refrigerator. When you’re ready to bake another batch, unwrap the chilled roll of dough and slice off as few or as many cookies as you like.
Quickly Chill Cookie Dough
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 (Target), or left in the mixing bowl, covered.
Freezing cookies is easy and they taste great after you thaw 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.
What is this? 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.
Most homemade cookies will maintain their taste and texture for up to 3 days. If you leave them out for too long, the cookies begin to harden or dry out. To prevent cookies from becoming stale, cover them with plastic wrap or keep in an airtight container.
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.
Why Are My Cookies Flat? 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.
As the dough chills in the fridge, it loses excess moisture: this, in turn, concentrates the remaining ingredients, yielding a more flavorful end product.
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.
Chill at least 1 hour or overnight.
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.
For cookies, they’ll spread out too quickly, tasting doughy and soft instead of full-bodied and chewy.
Lining a baking sheet when making cookies: Not only will the parchment help cookies bake more evenly, the non-stick quality also helps prevent them from cracking or breaking when lifting them off the sheet. Decorating home-baked goods: Parchment paper makes the perfect wrapper for baked goods.
If dough is too sticky when you start to roll, adding flour to the rolling surface can quickly cause the dough to crack if you use too much. What is this? Use as little flour as possible – any more than a teaspoon and not only will the dough crack as you roll, it will also bake up dry and crumbly.
Rest the Dough A secret baker’s trick is to rest your cookie dough in the fridge. You can rest it for at least an hour, which will evaporate some of the water and increase the sugar content, helping to keep your cookies chewy. The longer you allow your dough to rest in the fridge, the chewier your cookies will be.
Arrange cookies on baking sheets 3 inches apart. Bake for 11-12 minutes, until lightly browned around the edges. Make sure you rotate the baking sheet halfway through bake time. Allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before decorating.
When the batch is done baking, simply slide the parchment paper with cooked cookies off the cookie sheet and onto a wire rack (you may need to let the cookies cool slightly before transferring them from the parchment paper directly onto the rack to cool completely).
Cookie chemistry: We’re taking a 180° turn from our crunchy cookies, substituting higher-moisture brown sugar and butter for their lower-moisture counterparts: granulated sugar and vegetable shortening. That, plus a shortened baking time, yields a cookie that’s soft and chewy all the way through.
If your cookies won’t hold together well enough to take them off the baking sheet with a spatula, or if parts of them are obviously still very gooey/runny, then they are undercooked. Otherwise, the best way to tell is to sample one (after it has cooled enough to eat).
Better to be on the safe side and remove them when they’re slightly underdone than burn them. You can always return cookies to the oven if they need a few more minutes. You can even rebake cookies long after they’re cool to restore crispness or freshness.
Once it’s clear that you do have limp cookies or less-than-crispy crackers, put them back into a preheated 300° F or 325° F oven, regardless of the original (presumably higher) baking temperature.
If your cookies are rock hard, the site explains that it’s likely due to an over-abundance of sugar, which hardens, darkens, and flattens the cookies as they bake. Bake or Break adds that over-mixing your dough can be the culprit, too. When flour is blended with other ingredients, gluten starts to form.
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.
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. After 72 hours the dough will begin to dry out and you risk it going bad.
Homemade cookie dough should be stored in small containers in the refrigerator for two to four days or freeze for two months.
Place two equal-sized sheets of parchment paper underneath and above the dough, making a kind of dough sandwich. Then roll out with your rolling pin, keeping the dough sandwiched between the two parchment sheets. Once it has been rolled to the thickness you’re going for, chill the dough for the requisite time.
Editor: Jen, we would probably vote for cookie dough, since nothing beats a truly fresh-baked cookie. But we would recommend scooping the dough and freezing it solid on cookie sheets, then sealing the frozen in lumps in bags for longer storage.
To store cookies in the freezer, you have multiple options. The first is using a Ziploc bag. Simply put the baked cookies in the bag, seal it, and put it in the freezer to be used at any time. Another way to store the cookies is in a sealed container.
Best Cookie Freezer Storage Container: Ziploc Freezer Gallon Bags. Okay, they’re not the fanciest, but Ziploc’s gallon-size freezer bags are the best choice when it comes to freezing cookies. The bags’ “Grip ‘n Seal” zip top keeps the freezer burn at bay and are flexible so they can squeeze into a packed freezer.