The Ultimate Guide On How To Make Cookie Dough
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On the list of America’s favorite sweet treats, you’d likely find ice cream, sodas, candies, and cookies. You can find it raw, in ice cream, power bars, coffee syrups, and donuts (how long do donuts last?). The cookie dough craze has been one of the longest in food trend history and it’s never too late to jump on the bandwagon.
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Cookie Dough Ingredients
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Butter
Butter (how long does butter last?) is the star of the cookie dough show and how you incorporate it makes a difference. You can mix it into sugar melted or softened; the former will result in more spread and a “cakier” texture in your finished cookie. I personally only ever use softened butter because melted butter loses the ability to cream with sugar and hold air.
Sugar
Traditional chocolate (What wine goes well with chocolate?) chip cookies use brown sugar, which is where they get their distinctive color. Most modern cookie dough recipes call for a combination of sugars (usually 1:1). Using white sugar alone will make a dryer and more brittle cookie. The molasses (how long does molasses last?) from the brown sugar will add different notes of flavor and affect the proteins in the cookie dough for a softer bite.
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Eggs
Eggs are of course a binder for the cookies, but they play a much bigger role than that. . Egg yolks are incredibly rich and silky, imparting those characteristics into the cookie dough. If you’re going to max out on any ingredient it should be this one.
Flour
Flour (how long does flour last?) has the largest visible and textural effect on cookies. Of course, for starters, the amount you use will determine how much your cookies spread out as the butter melts, but it’s also about the kind you use.
Plain or all-purpose flour works perfectly well, but depending on how you like your cookies, you can alternate. Bread flour (how long does bread flour last?) will form more gluten strands making a chewier cookie with less spread, flours with less protein will spread more and be crumbly.
Always remember to sift your flour into the wet ingredients to incorporate air into the dough and avoid any clumps.
If you're looking for all-purpose flour or bread flour, buying it online is your best bet!
Baking Powder/Soda
Let’s take a look at the difference between baking soda (how long does baking soda last?) and baking powder (how long does baking powder last?): baking soda (bicarbonate of soda) is a rising agent that needs to be activated by acid. Baking powder, on the other hand, is baking soda with the ascitic (typically calcium phosphate) already mixed into it.
Baking powder is used as both a leavening agent and for browning. The alkali and acid in baking powder react, neutralizing each other and giving off CO2 gas, which aerates the dough, making the finished cookie lighter. When using both...
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Flavor Ingredients
Salt, vanilla, other spices, and extracts are simply used to enhance flavor and add a touch of seasonality. Nut extracts like almond or hazelnut can go a long way, peppermint extract (how long does peppermint extract last?) is a great way to get festive, and of course, there are things like gingerbread, orange, and many more.
For the most extensive selection, I suggest buying salt and vanilla online!
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How to Make Cookie Dough
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Equipment
Weighing Scale
If you bake anything, you need a weighing scale. A lot of the time cooking is done by feel which comes with experience, but baking is much more of an exact science, so correct ratios and precision are required.
Save time and effort by ordering weighing scales online!
Hand Mixer
A hand mixer will do wonders for creaming butter and sugar (a method you’ll come across a lot as a baker). It’s the first step in the cookie dough process, and in many other delicious desserts that call for butter and sugar. A hand mixer is also great for making meringues, cake batters, and more!
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Rubber Spatula
If you use a hand mixer to mix the flour, baking powder, and salt into the wet ingredients you’ll almost definitely overwork the dough making tough, hard, brittle cookies as the gluten overdevelops. You need a rubber spatula to gently fold all the ingredients into a consistent dough.
Online shopping for rubber spatula is the smart choice for a seamless transaction!
Baking Tray
A heavy, thick bottom baking tray is the way to go; it conducts heat evenly and minimizes hotspots. In my experience, flat baking trays lined with parchment on the middle rack of an oven work best.
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Wire Rack
A wire rack will help cool freshly baked cookies (how long do freshly baked cookies last?) evenly and quickly. Once you’ve let your cookies cool for a couple minutes, simply slide your cookies onto a wire rack to stop them from continuing the cooking process. This will give you a deliciously crisp cookie that’s gooey on the inside.
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Mixing
Cream the Butter & Sugar
Creaming butter and sugar is a technique you’ll come across more than most things in baking, it's an essential technique, yet oh-so-easy. The purpose of creaming is to dissolve the sugar into the butter so it disperses evenly and simultaneously aerates the butter, increasing the volume of the cookie dough, making it light and fluffy.
Add the softened butter and sugars into a mixing bowl, set up your electric mixer, and beat on high. You’ll know it’s done when the mixture is smoother, lighter (which you can simply test by scooping out a bit with your finger), and slightly more pale in color.
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Add the Eggs
After the butter and sugar are creamed, add the eggs one at a time. This helps emulsify the eggs and the butter since they don’t naturally mix. After adding the last egg, add any extracts, vanilla seeds, and other liquid ingredients.
Sift the Flour & Fold
Add the correct amount of flour and baking powder to a sieve, and sift them into the wet ingredients. Sifting them together will incorporate air and evenly distribute the baking powder, as well as minimize any clumps. Salt typically doesn’t fit through a fine-mesh sieve, so just add it separately.
Use a rubber spatula to gently fold all the ingredients together.
Resting
Resting cookie dough in the fridge is an essential step to good cookies. It cools the butter in the dough, which helps cookies keep their shape when cooking. It also helps to create a chewier cookie.
Shaping & Spacing
Shaping and spacing depend on how you prepared the cookie dough. Thinner cookies with more butter that spread more need more space on the baking tray and vice versa. When shaping them try to avoid using your hands because that would melt the butter that is best left cold.
Try using an ice cream scoop, or if you have it to hand, a cookie scoop made specifically for the job. If you have to use your hands for shaping, handle the dough as little as possible and make sure to cool the cookies in the fridge for 30 minutes, before placing them in the oven.
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Time & Temperature
A low temperature and slower bake will result in a thinner cookie and less browning. A higher temperature and short baking time will have the opposite effect, creating a firmer, more golden cookie. There’s no right or wrong way, and it’s really up to you!. Personally, I think a temperature between 375 and 400 degrees Fahrenheit is the sweet spot.
If you’re making normal size cookies - about 8-10 inches in diameter - a 12-15 minute bake should be plenty, in a fan oven. You’ll be able to easily visualize when they’re done and the right shade of brown. Every oven is different, so experiment with your baking time to find your perfect cooking time.
Cooling
If you’ve ever baked cookies from scratch, or from a tube, you’ll know why they need to cool. Cookies that come out of the oven are super soft and will fall apart in your hands.
Once the baking tray comes out of the oven, use a thin, metal spatula to transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool. Of course, they don’t have to cool all the way. After all, there aren’t many things better than warm, freshly baked cookies.
To find the perfect cookies, baked from homemade cookie dough, requires a bit of trial-and-error. The perfect cookie varies for everyone, and with so many elements, it can take a few tries. When I started baking cookies, every batch would spread and I’d end up with a plate of brittle cookie chips. Use this guide to adapt how you make your cookies to find your sweet spot.
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