“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.
As a general rule of thumb, you should refrigerate cookie dough for at least 30 minutes and up to 24 hours.
How to bake frozen cookie dough: You can either let the dough completely defrost overnight in the fridge or for a couple hours at room temperature and bake just as the recipe originally instructed. OR, if you’re impatient like me, you can bake from frozen.
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.
Generally, it’s okay to bake these types of cookies directly from the freezer, but they will not turn out exactly like those that are baked fresh. The taste will remain, but the cookies will not spread as large. If you want the spread to be the same, we recommend thawing the dough for 24 hours in the fridge.
30 minutes will do the trick if you’re simply looking to avoid your cookies spreading all over the place. If you have the luxury of chilling the dough overnight to develop flavor, go for it.
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.
It is best to chill dough in the refrigerator for the entire recommended amount of time.
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. … If the dough is fridge-cold then the cookies may take very slightly longer to bake.
HEAT oven to 350°F (or 325°F for nonstick cookie sheet). PLACE cookie dough rounds about 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet. BAKE 10 to 14 minutes or until light golden brown.
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.
Store-bought or homemade cookie dough is safe to cook in the microwave, but won’t taste as good as conventional cookies. … Unlike an oven which heats food from the outside first, a microwave does the opposite. So, the cookie isn’t chewy or crisp; instead, it’s best described as tough.
And there are no baking police: If your recipe tells you to flatten your cookies before baking, you just go ahead and do that however you want. So long as they end up evenly flat, that is; squashing cookies haphazardly under your palm means they may bake and brown unevenly.
When baking frozen cookie dough, you do not have to thaw the cookie dough. Simply place the frozen, pre-scooped cookie dough onto a baking sheet and bake for 2-3 minutes longer than the original recipe recommends. That’s it!
Place the solid and cold cookie dough balls into a labeled zipped-top bag– large or small depending on how much dough you have. Label the bag with the month and the baking temperature and place the bag in the freezer. Freeze cookie dough for up to 3 months.
In most cases, I prefer to freeze cookie dough over freezing baked cookies. That way, you still get the nice homemade smell and softness of the cookies when they come out of the oven. But if you want to get the whole job done, you can certainly bake the cookies, then freeze them later.