The 1 Step You Ought to By no means Skip When Baking Cookies

Should you make cookies usually, you’ve doubtless come throughout the instruction to refrigerate your dough earlier than baking. It may be tempting to miss this step so you possibly can, properly, eat your cookies sooner. However we promise that it’s well worth the wait. Should you enable your dough to relax, for a minimum of half-hour and as much as a day, your cookies will bake extra evenly — and style higher in addition.

Why it is best to refrigerate your cookie dough 

Refrigerating your cookie dough earlier than baking serves a number of functions: 

The dough can be simpler to roll out

Take into consideration your favourite cut-out sugar cookies. Should you tried to roll out any such cookie dough straight from the mixer, it might doubtless be sticky and a problem to work with. That’s as a result of the butter (or different fats) you’ve crushed to make the dough has softened. Refrigeration companies up each the butter and the dough itself, which permits for a drier floor to make use of your rolling pin.

Your cookies can be much less more likely to unfold within the oven 

Firmer butter may also take longer to soften and pool within the oven, which implies that your cookies will retain their form higher throughout baking. That is essential not simply on your gingerbread folks — who would possibly in any other case appear to be unidentifiable blobs and limbs — but additionally for drop cookies like chocolate chip cookies or snickerdoodles, which might be simply as vulnerable to spreading and shedding their mounded form as they bake.

Another excuse your cookies will unfold much less after a relaxation is the redistribution of liquid within the dough. Given time, each the flour and sugar in cookie dough will regularly soak up water from the eggs, butter, and different moist elements. Sugar does this as a result of it’s hygroscopic, which suggests it readily attracts and holds onto water. In flour, the gluten-forming proteins and starch granules act like a sponge to retain water. 

Your cookies can have a superior taste and texture  

Because the sugar and flour soak up water from the moist elements, there’s much less “additional” water within the dough. The result’s a drier dough with a better focus of sugar and different taste compounds. That implies that your cookies will unfold much less, have chewier facilities, and be extra flavorful.

Moreover, when the sugar turns into extra concentrated and evenly distributed, your cookies will brown extra readily and persistently, which produces a properly delicate and crispy exterior.

When to not chill your dough

Understand that not all cookies profit from the refrigeration step. Usually talking, cookies meant to be skinny or crispy (like tuiles or biscotti) or mushy and cakey (akin to black and white cookies) must be baked as quickly as your dough is prepared. It will make sure you get the specified look, taste, and texture. 

When making cookies, you’re greatest off following the recipe. To disregard the refrigeration step could imply you get to eat cookies sooner, however they will not be fairly pretty much as good as they might. So, sit back — and let your dough chill.