Magic in the Middle Cookies Recipe and Neighborhood Traditions (2024)

FAQs

What happens to the cookies if a cookie recipe calls for butter and you decide to melt the butter first? ›

“Room temp butter is able to hold onto air,” Szewczyk says. “You can mechanically shove air into it by creaming. Warm butter is not able to hold onto it, so you're going to get a denser dough.” When using warmer or melted butter, cookies will struggle to lift and lighten, resulting in a cakier texture, like brownies.

Cookies made with melted butter often deflate and become denser when they cool, resulting in a perfectly cooked fudgy center — a similar textural result to brownies that get rapped (aka banged against an oven rack mid-bake to deflate them) or Sarah Kieffer's iconic pan-banging cookies that turn out pleasantly compact.

Butter is an emulsifier and it makes cookies tender. It also adds in the crispy-around-the-edges element. Adding too much butter can cause the cookies to be flat and greasy. Adding too little butter can cause the cookies to be tough and crumbly.

A lower temperature will require more cooking time and will ultimately result in a thinner, crisper chocolate chip cookie. For those ooey, gooey chocolate chip cookies, 375 degrees Fahrenheit is your sweet spot.

We've found that the optimal temperature for cookie baking is 350F. It gives the butter in the dough time to melt and lightly spread before the remaining ingredients cook through.

Placing chilled dough in a slightly hotter oven (usually 400 degrees versus 350 — 375 degrees used for cookies like chocolate chip) helps the cookies retain their shape. Cool It. Let the cookies rest on the cookie sheets for a few minutes before removing to a wire rack for cooling.

It all makes a difference. Our control cookie, as with most cookies, uses softened butter, and this recipe tends to be a bit cakier. A cookie made with the same amount of melted butter will give you a fudgier, chewier cookie. It helps it spread out more and gives you some nice divots to catch more chocolate.

Butter needs to be chilled rapidly to turn solid — so all you need to do is mix a few ice cubes into a bowl of melted butter and stir. In less than a minute, the butter should turn into the soft yet solid state that's perfect for your baking needs.

The whipping process will create air pockets, resulting in a fluffier, even-textured cookie. Butter that is too warm (looking at you, microwave) or too cold won't aerate properly, which means you're looking at an inconsistent and not-so-fluffy dessert.