- Epicurious Essentials: Cooking How-Tos
- Cakes & Cookies
- Episode 7
How to Make Cookie Dough
Released on 11/11/2008
(lighthearted music)
[Narrator] Making cookie dough.
To make cookie dough,
start with your ingredients at room temperature.
Begin by placing your butter in the bottom of a bowl
and add the sugar
and begin combining the with an electric mixer
fitted with a whisk.
This process is called creaming.
Creaming is the most important step in cookie making
because it incorporates air into the mixture
and keeps the cookies from becoming tough.
In the beginning, you'll see a noticeable texture change.
What you're eventually looking for though
is that the mixture becomes very pale, yellow,
smooth and fluffy.
This can take about five minutes.
Continue blending.
Add your vanilla.
Add your egg.
And mix those ingredients well.
From time to time while you're beating,
it's important to turn off your mixer
and use a rubber spatula
to scrape down the sides of the bowl.
This incorporates any ingredients that on the sides
might not have mixed in properly.
Do this a couple of times during a batch of cookies.
Continue beating.
Add your salt
and then gradually add the flour little by little,
but it's important to work quickly
and not over mix the dough.
Over working the flour in a cookie dough
will cause the cookies to be tough
and you'll end up with a dense and heavy dough.
So do take care not to over mix the dough.
When the mixture looks nice and even and homogenous,
gather the dough with your hands into a ball.
It should feel sticky, not wet and not too crumbly.
Gather it together in a ball
and take care again not to over work the dough.
Press it into a disk and then wrap it in plastic wrap.
By forming it into a disk,
it'll be easier to roll out later.
Wrap it tightly in plastic wrap,
pressing any air out as much as possible
and put it in the fridge.
The dough will be ready in about an hour
when it's chilled.
(lighthearted music)
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How to Make Frosting Swirls
How to Make Cookie Dough
How to Roll Out Cookie Dough
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