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Cold butter vs room temp butter in my chocolate chip cookies, and I was dead wrong for 10 years
I always used cold butter straight from the fridge because I thought it kept the cookies from spreading too much, and my cookies came out flat and greasy every single time. Last month my neighbor Doris, who ran a bakery in Omaha for 22 years, watched me do it and just shook her head. She told me to soften the butter on the counter for about 90 minutes, so it dents when you poke it but is not melty at all. I tried it on one batch of 24 cookies and the difference was night and day, they were thick and chewy instead of sad little pancakes. Creaming cold butter never really traps air the way soft butter does, so the dough never gets that lift. I have made 6 batches this way now and every one came out the same. Does anyone else have a trick for when you forgot to pull the butter out early enough?
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fisher.charlie2d ago
Something I read years ago in a Cook's Illustrated article said you can grate frozen butter on a box grater and it softens up in like 10 minutes once it hits the sugar. Never tried it myself but it makes sense since more surface area means faster warming. The other thing I heard is you can cut the cold butter into small cubes and spread them on a plate, they hit room temp way faster than a whole stick. Doris sounds like she knows her stuff, that poke test is the real trick. Cold butter just smears around the bowl instead of getting fluffy, which is why your old cookies were flat and greasy.
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