Does ‘Aging’ Your Dough Really Make for a Better Cookie?

Cookies are like snowflakes and cats: Each special in their own way, even the nasty ones. But there is an idea floating around out there that aging your cookie dough can make something that's already pretty great even better.

So I set out to see if aging your cookie dough actually can make for a better cookie. (And if not that, then what could?)

How do you "age" cookie dough?

Jacques Torres, the chocolatier and lovable head judge on the Netflix show, Nailed It!, has a popular chocolate chip cookie recipe that bakes up crackled, puddled with chocolate, and kissed with sea salt. But the special part isn't how picture perfect they are, it's how long they take to make: The instructions indicate chilling the dough in the refrigerator for 24 hours minimum, and ideally for up to three days.

If this rest time actually makes a difference for Torres' treats, is it a possible hack for all cookie recipes? I decided to investigate.Because while I trust Chef's experience, his recipe begs the question: Why the heck are we putting this dough in the fridge for one to three days? I know exactly zero other cookie recipes that work on this kind of timeline.

Three cookies tests. Forgive my mediocre cropping skills. Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann The theory behind "aging" cookie dough

Although you won't find reasoning from chef Jacques on mrchocolate.com, his recipe is public, and lots of people have re-posted it and seem to have formed their own opinions. The New York Times' pre-recipe blurb says, This allows the dry ingredients time to soak up the wet ones, which results in a firmer dough." This brief paragraph doesn't say indicate firmer is better (and the refrigeration might be what's actually responsible for that), but it did make me think about the autolyse method, a mixing technique used in some sourdough bread recipes.

Autolyse is when you start a bread recipe by mixing flour and water together, which you then let sit for a period of time. During this pause, the flour gets a chance to fully hydrate. Tough whole grain flour particles soften and fermentation slows down to develop flavor, which also facilitates a stretchier dough. That's amazing for bread, but not exactly the kind of stuff we usually need to happen in a cookie. Plus, there's barely any moisture in most cookie recipes anyway-a bit of extract, egg, and a smidge of water in the butter. And even if you assume that process is what we're going for here, autolyse only takes 30 to 60 minutes.

Still unsure on the reasoning, I ran some tests to see if "cured" cookies are worth the wait.

A test of two cookies

I decided to test two batches of cookie dough: Jacques Torres' recipe, and the classic Toll House recipe on the back of a bag of morsels. I baked cookies from both batches across different aging periods: One right after mixing the dough (with 30 to 50 minutes chill time to firm it up, since the rest of my aged" cookies would also be coming out of the fridge); another bake after seven to 12 hours; and another after 24 hours. ]

My hope was that this baking marathon would reveal any change in the cookies over time, or at least prove that Torres' specific recipe truly benefits from the extra wait time.

Toll House cookies from different bakes. Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann The (kind of) surprising results

Pounds of chocolate, hundreds of salt flakes later, and one tummy-ache later, I reached a conclusion. It turns out that aging your cookie dough for more than 50 minutes (which is enough time to chill the dough completely) doesn't result in any noteworthy changes in flavor or texture.

Whether a Toll House or Torres cookie, both batters chilled for 50 minutes resulted in cookies the same flavor, crispiness, and chewiness as ones baked from dough that was chilled for more than 12 hours. In a way, it's kind of a relief. If aging cookie dough did indeed lead to better cookies, then those refrigerator aisle logs filled with months-old pre-packaged dough would technically be the GOAT.

(I also I tasted samples of each of the cookies after they had been stored in airtight containers separately for 24 hours to see if the aged cookies held up better after baking. Again, there was no detectable difference.)

How to make the best cookie for you

Make no mistake, both cookie recipes I made were incredible. (These are the times I like my job most.) The fact that you don't need to age basic cookie dough, let alone Jacques Torres' famous cookie dough, is good news, because who wants to wait that long to eat a cookie? (No one.)

• But the whole reason I conducted this investigation in the first place is because I know you folks want a way to make your version of the perfect cookie. Perhaps aging dough would be the secret to supreme chewiness or extra crispy edges? But just like best friends and avocados, it's what's inside that matters most: Torres' cookie recipe uses high-gluten flour, which produces a nice crust on the outside and a pleasant chew on the outer edge. That is to say, the ingredients you choose and the ratio in which you add them are what can actually help you bake the perfect cookie for you.
  
  Here are some rules to follow that will actually change your bake:
  
  For chewy cookies: Use a higher ratio or brown sugar. Instead of creaming room temperature butter with the sugar, try using melted butter and don't worry about aerating it with the sugar. Substitute 25% to 50% of the all purpose flour with high-gluten bread flour.

• For crispy cookies: Use recipes that have an even higher ratio of fat and use mostly white sugar. Recipes with no eggs or just egg whites can yield a crispier cookie.

• For crunchy cookies: Use cookie recipes that have a bit more flour and a lower ratio of egg for a drier dough. Add a few extra minutes to the baking time.

• For soft cookies: Cream the fat and sugars together until very light and fluffy. Use recipes that have a higher ratio of eggs, or add an extra to make any recipe a bit softer.