Christmas Pinwheel Spiral Swirl Sugar Cookies – Easy No-Chill Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What happens if you don't chill cookie dough? ›

Popping your dough in the fridge allows the fats to cool. As a result, the cookies will expand more slowly, holding onto their texture. If you skip the chilling step, you're more likely to wind up with flat, sad disks instead of lovely, chewy cookies. Cookies made from chilled dough are also much more flavorful.

Chilling the dough is a key step in making sugar cookies, especially when you're making cut-outs. Even if you're tight on time, make sure to get the dough in the fridge, or even the freezer, even if it's only for a little while. Skip this step, and the dough will be sticky, and much harder to work with.

Firmer Dough

Firm dough prevents the cookies from spreading too much, which is why chilling the dough is a crucial step for cut-out and rolled cookies. "The colder and more solid the fat is, the less the cookie will spread," says food stylist and recipe developer Caitlin Haught Brown.

That's right, you can freeze it for a bit to shave quite a bit of time off the chilling suggestion in the recipe. Here's what our Test Kitchen recommends when quickly chilling cookie dough in the freezer: Place the cookie dough in the freezer for one-quarter of the recommended refrigerator time.

That's right. The composition of your cookies will come out differently after refrigeration because of the butter in the dough. "When your cookie dough is not refrigerated, the butter is at room temperature. Therefore the heat from the oven reacts with the butter quickly, making it spread thinner," says Epperson.

The cookie baked from room temperature, being thinner, has a more uniform texture, while the one baked straight from the fridge. is thick enough to accommodate a softer interior. and crispier exterior. No contest. Generally speaking, you should chill your cookie dough before baking it.

Solution: If you have kept your dough in the refrigerator and you find that it has developed a dry texture you will need to add more liquid. Add a teaspoon of water or milk and mix. I would recommend mixing with your hands to avoid overmixing the dough.

The Best Way to Chill Cookie Dough

Place them on a baking sheet or plate, then transfer the dough to the refrigerator to chill. “If you forgot to scoop the dough before chilling, you may need to let the dough warm up for 5 to 10 minutes before it becomes 'scoopable,'” Hill advises.

What happens if you leave cookie dough in the fridge too long? ›

The fact is, no matter how divine and delicious cookie dough is, it is a raw product that contains eggs and butter. Over time, it'll become rancid, on top of the lurking danger of salmonella and E. coli.

The short of it? Chilling cookie dough makes the cookies much more flavorful, with that blissful caramelized butterscotch flavor, and it makes them thicker, chewier, and browner.

As you can imagine, utilizing the freezer is an alternative way to chill your cookie dough if you are in a hurry. As a rule of thumb, aim to chill the dough in the freezer for about a quarter of the time you would typically refrigerate it. So, if you can't do an hour in the refrigerator, do 15 minutes in the freezer.

Your cookies may be spreading after cooling due to factors like warm butter, overmixing, ingredient ratios, oven temperature, warm baking sheets, or not chilling the dough. Adjusting these factors can help prevent excessive spreading.

Homemade cookie dough should be stored in small containers in the refrigerator for two to four days or freeze for two months. Alternatively, small quantities of dough can be frozen and thawed in the refrigerator as needed.

There's another benefit to this trick: Resting your cookie dough before baking also helps the cookies hold their shape in the oven, leading to more browning and caramelization of the dough itself and keeping the cookies from spreading out too thin.

A cookie cooling rack allows air to circulate under the cookies, cooling them quickly and completely. Good news: If you don't have a cookie cooling rack, there's a workaround. To cool cookies without a rack, remove cookies from the baking sheet and allow them to cool on paper towels on the countertop.