Why You Should Start Aging Your Cookie Dough

Wine, cheese, and steak can all be aged — but, how about cookie dough? While it's not recommended to age the raw dough for months or years like other foods and beverages, a longer chill in the fridge can result in a better cookie. Also referred to as ripening, aging cookie dough simply means storing it in the fridge for anywhere from 30 minutes to 72 hours to improve the taste, texture, and color. 

By letting all of the ingredients rest and incorporate, several important things occur. First, the butter has the chance to solidify so that it doesn't spread out as much when it's baked. This will result in a more compact, thicker, and chunkier cookie. Added ingredients, such as oats, chocolate chips, nuts, or coconut, will sit nice and tight at the top.

The dough will also dry and tighten in the fridge, causing whatever flavors are present to become more intense and concentrated. Sugar is an important component here, too — it becomes more concentrated as the dough dries and shrinks. When the dough is baked, it will result in a crispier, chewier texture. Finally, the greatly desired, beautiful, golden-brown color becomes more enhanced when the cookie dough is aged.

Even just 30 minutes is a good enough time period for aging. Is more time better? Not necessarily. There may be some small enhancement after aging the cookie dough for an hour, a few hours, or even up to a few days. Extra-aged cookie dough sounds like a fancy treat, but the USDA recommends only keeping raw dough in the fridge for two to four days before using or freezing it.

Chocolate chip, sugar cookie, double chocolate, white chocolate macadamia, and other flavors that follow a similar base would be improved with aging in the fridge. Placing oatmeal cookie dough in the fridge for a few days helps break down the oats for a softer cookie. The spices in cookies will become intensified throughout the dough with some time in the fridge. In fact, there's a German gingerbread cookie that is traditionally fermented for three to four months before baking for the most intense flavors. Cookies that have an altered base, like cottage cheese cookie dough or oil-free cookie dough, may not be the best candidates for aging. Note that aged doesn't mean cooked — it is still unsafe to eat raw cookie dough!