5 Secrets to Making the Best Cookies of Your Life: From an Experienced Baker

Cookies. We all love them, we all have our favorite type and flavor, but do we all know how to make them so perfect? There's a million different recipes out there for every kind of cookie, so how do we choose? Then once we've got our recipe, how do we even know it's going to come out right?

Sure the picture looks great and how hard is it really to follow a recipe?

I've been baking for over 10 years. I graduated from culinary school, have worked in various parts of the industry and have made thousands of cookies.

Although chefs, bloggers, media professionals and avid home bakers will all give you different recipes to the "best" chocolate chip cookie, they all can agree on a few things. This is what I've gathered over the years on how to perfect any type of cookie.

With a little bit of patience and determination, I guarantee you that your next batch will be worth the wait.

Learn the tips below, then, check out my recipe for my favorite cookies here.

Happy baking 🍪

Read the entire recipe first

This rule actually applies to any recipe, both cooking and baking. It's important to know what you're getting yourself into. How much time will this take? Does it need to rest? Do you have to reserve certain ingredients for the end? Does anything need to be melted, cooled, heated? What if you start a recipe and realize it takes more time then you have? Or you don't have the right equipment?

Know your ingredients

I'm not saying you have to dive deep into the science of baking powder vs baking soda and how you can substitute, but you should know at least what you're making. Unless you're a professional, don't assume you can use oil instead of butter because that's all you have. Recipes are written with those things for a reason. Substituting just out or pure laziness will result in mediocre if not completely failed cookies. This goes back to rule #1.

Chill your dough

Ok this one I'm sure you've seen in almost every cookie recipe. Do you follow it, or just skip over it because you're impatient and want those cookies ASAP? If a recipe tells you to chill the dough, do me a favor and chill the dough. Letting the dough rest in the fridge allows all the ingredients to get to know each other, resulting in a cookie with much more developed flavor. It also firms up the dough and when baked, doesn't spread as much.

Slightly under bake your cookies

Usually it takes anywhere from 10-15 minutes for cookies to bake. The trick is to take the cookies out about 1-2 minutes before the recipe tells you. This will give you a perfectly textured cookie because as the cookies cool, they will harden slightly. If you take them out at the "right" time, they will probably be too crunchy. See last rule for more.

Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet

Once you take your cookies out of the oven, DO NOT touch them for at least 5 minutes. Let them sit on the baking sheet, then transfer them to a wire rack to finish cooling. The reason you want to do this is because you've under baked your cookies. As the cookies sit on the baking sheet, they will continue to cook. Have you ever heard of carryover cooking with meat? Same concept. They'll finish cooking on the sheet without the harshness of a 350° oven. Perfectly crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside.