The Gooey Reason Ina Garten Freezes Her Cookie Dough Before Baking
When it comes to baking up the sweetest of treats, Ina Garten has one simple trick to get the perfect consistency for her cookies. In Garten's 2020 cookbook, "Modern Comfort Food," she shared her recipe for giant crinkled chocolate chip cookies. But before the Barefoot Contessa puts her dough in the oven, she takes one extra step to perfect it.
Once Garten has completely mixed her cookie dough, she divides it into 12 scoops and places them onto the baking tray. Once they've been arranged, she transfers the entire tray to the freezer. She allows the cookie dough to chill for 15 minutes before removing the tray.
Garten then spreads out her cookies even more, preventing any risk of the cookies melding together as they bake. She typically places four scoops of dough on a tray, then bakes them at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. The chilling of the dough makes for a softer center to the cookie, allowing every bite to be perfectly soft and gooey on the inside.
Other bakers recommend refrigeration
Allowing cookie dough to chill isn't a new concept, and it's even recommended by other experts. Even Martha Stewart's website recommends the extra step — but suggests using the fridge rather than the freezer. The site states that you should be refrigerating your cookie dough for a minimum of half an hour, up to a full 24 hours. Any longer than that won't produce a significant difference in the outcome of the cookies, so longer chilling isn't necessary.
King Arthur Baking published the results of an experiment done by one baker, showing the differences in cookies that had been chilled in the fridge for half an hour prior to baking versus those that went straight into the oven. The un-chilled dough spread out flatter than its refrigerated counterpart. The chilled dough stayed more contained, but the cookies also browned a little more, ultimately ending up with a perfectly golden brown edge and chewy center.
Although the fridge is typically recommended for chilling cookie dough, Ina Garten's preference for the freezer may help speed things up a little, thanks to the cooler temperatures.
The freezer can preserve cookie dough for a while
In her recipe, Garten notes that if you split up your cookie dough and bake it in smaller amounts, you shouldn't freeze the dough for over 15 minutes — it could get too solid and become difficult to work with. However, this could actually be a great way to preserve the dough if you aren't planning to bake the treats immediately.
Storing your dough in the freezer can be a great way to plan ahead. Food Network notes that cookie dough can be stored in the freezer for up to four months. When you're ready to bake up the sweet treats, the dough can be removed from the cold temperatures, then placed on the tray to bake — no thawing necessary.
The site also notes that drop cookies tend to be the best contenders for freezing dough, so recipes like oatmeal raisin, or Garten's chocolate chip, will hold up the best in the colder temperatures.