- Hi everyone, it's Beth from the Wilton test kitchen.
And I'm back with another frequently asked question.
We actually get this question in all kinds of forms, a lot.
People have a hard time working with roll-out cookie dough.
So I want to talk about roll-out cookie dough today,
and give you some tips and tricks on how to be
successful with that.
The recipe I'm going to show you today is awesome because
it doesn't require any chilling before you can
roll it out to cut out your cookies.
Super huge time saver when you don't have to
chill the dough down before cutting it.
So this is the Wilton No Chill Roll-Out Cookie Dough,
I'm gonna show you how to make it right now.
So I have all of my ingredients laid out.
And into my bowl of my mixer, I'm going to pour
my granulated sugar, with two sticks of butter.
And it's softened, so that it's at room temperature,
so that it can combine with my sugar
really nice and easily.
Use a paddle attachment, just mix it on low speed.
And what you're looking for here is for the butter
and the sugar to be nice and creamed together.
So they will be light in color, and very fluffy,
just like this, that's exactly what you need
for these cookies.
Now to my butter and sugar mixture I'm going to add
one egg and two different extracts.
If I didn't mention it before, these cookies are delicious.
So not only are they simple to make and roll out,
but they're also super yummy.
To get that flavor I'm going to add vanilla extract,
and also almond extract, so it's gonna have
a dual flavor that's really awesome.
One of my very favorite cookie recipes.
So once these are nice and combined,
we're gonna go ahead and combine our dry ingredients.
I have two and three quarters cups of all purpose flour,
and to that I'm going to add one teaspoon of salt
which is also going to add a lot of awesome
flavor to my cookie, and one teaspoon of baking powder.
I just want to give these a quick mix together
to get the baking powder and the salt
combined into the flour before we add this
to our butter mixture.
And then I'm just going to go ahead and add this
to my mixer, about one cup at a time, nice and slow.
Make sure you stop your mixer, scrape it down,
every once in a while so that everything gets
nice and combined.
So you'll see it starts to get really, really thick,
like cookie dough, and you're going to, again,
want to scrape the bottom and the sides
to make sure that there's nothing sticking,
no flour sticking to the sides, or especially
to the bottom of the bowl.
It can collect there, so give it a nice good scrape
to get all those dry bits up and into the
stickier dough.
And give it a few more turns around the bowl
until it becomes a nice ball.
That's when your cookie dough is ready.
And there you go, this is what it looks like,
see it's really really clumped together.
You don't want to over mix the dough.
So as soon as it starts to clump together like that,
that's when you wanna stop.
Because the more you mix the dough,
the tougher your cookies will get because you'll start
to develop the gluten in the flour,
and that's what makes cookies hard and tough.
So don't over mix.
When it starts to ball up like this,
you're perfectly ready to go!
Now we're ready to roll it out.
So I'm lightly dusting my surface with flour,
so that my dough doesn't stick once I put it out.
We're gonna work with half of our dough at a time.
So just eyeball in your bowl, about what half is,
scrape it out, kind of squish it together,
we wanna form a disc.
And then flatten it down, just like that, like into a disc.
Make sure you always have a lot of flour
underneath you, so that this dough doesn't stick.
But as you can see, I didn't chill my dough at all,
and it's very nice consistency to roll out
and play with, it's not sticking to me,
it's gonna roll out super easily because it's
not very cold, and we're ready to go.
Gonna put just a little bit of flour also
on top of the dough.
And I like to give my rolling pin
a little bit of flour as well, again,
less sticking is better.
You just want to roll this cookie dough out,
I like to turn it a quarter turn, once in a while.
'Cause this again is going to help prevent sticking.
Now if you like thicker cookies,
go ahead and roll them thicker.
Your bake time will just be slightly longer.
But I like mine a little bit crisp at the edges,
so an eighth of an inch is perfect for me.
You can see how nicely it's rolling out,
not fighting back at all, it's not cracking.
And I think that's perfect.
Great!
So you want to make sure you get it as even as possible
so that your cookies are as even as possible
when you cut them out.
Now you have your cutters ready.
You can cut these into, obviously,
any shape or size that you like.
But what I like to do is dip my cutter
into a bit of flour, in between almost every cut.
It's going to help the dough to not stick to my cutter.
Just press down, all the way down.
Give it a little jiggle, and release.
So the dough didn't stick to my cutter at all.
And the tiny little bit of flour that gets
at the edge of the cookie is actually going to help
seal the cookie a little bit, help it keep its shape
a little bit better in the oven.
So that's why I like to do that.
So just dipping and cutting.
And I'm going to cut so that there is as little
scrap in between my cookies as I can get.
Because we can re-roll, and we will re-roll our scraps,
but the more times you re-roll your dough,
again, the tougher it's going to get because
you'll be working the flour more.
So I like to place them as close as possible
while I'm cutting, so I have as little scrap as possible
to re-roll.
So now we need to transfer these to our cookie sheet.
And this can be a place where cookies get misshapen
so I want to give you some tricks on how to do it.
We want to remove, if there's a lot of excess flour,
brush it off.
That's the first thing.
And then remove the scraps around,
you can put these back in your bowl,
'cause like I said, we can reuse these.
We will re-roll them.
So I'm going to use a cookie spatula
to get underneath my cookies to transfer them.
Because that way I know that they're supported
the entire time from my countertop
to my pan with no jiggling or waddling.
Basically I haven't changed the shape at all
going from here to there.
If you try and do this with your hands,
your hands can wobble and shake.
Which is fine, but that can lead to a misshapen cookie.
So that's why I'm using this big cookie spatula
to help me along.
And then as I get to the cookies in the center,
oh, I tore one, it's no big deal.
I'll throw it back in the bowl and I'll re-roll it.
You don't need to use parchment with this recipe,
it's not a necessity, but, I like using parchment
whenever I bake cookies, because then I don't
have to clean the pans in between bakes,
so it's actually a real big time server.
So that's why I'm using it today.
So you'll notice I placed my cookies
about an inch, to an inch and a half apart,
you do want to allow for a little bit of spreading
just in case your dough is a little bit warmer
than it should be, so that they won't stick together.
So make sure you do that when you put them on your pan.
Now we're gonna bake these in a preheated
350 degree oven for between eight and 11 minutes.
You just want the edges to get very lightly golden brown.
So we're gonna pop 'em in the oven.
So now while my first batch bakes, I'm going to
re-roll the scraps of my first part of the dough,
and get my second batch of cookies
ready to go into the oven.
That way you're kind of cycling through
baking and rolling and baking and rolling.
And remember you still have half of your dough
in your bowl too, so just keep at it!
Cool your baked cookies on a cooling grid
like I've done here, and when they're
completely cool, they are an awesome canvass
for all kinds of decorating.
Check 'em out, they bake completely flat,
and they keep their shape awesome.
They look exactly like the cutter that you used.
That's why I love this recipe, especially because
it doesn't have to chill down in the refrigerator first.
So you can get the recipe for this
No Chill Roll-Out Cookie Dough here,
and please comment and subscribe to our channel below,
let me know what your questions are about
baking and cake decorating.
And finally, if you'd like to learn more about
cookies in general, especially all the of the
awesome things you can do to decorate them,
check out my new Craftsy class,
Get Started Cookie Decorating.
I'm Beth Somers, I'll answer another question soon!
Take care.