You’ve just got home from a long day at work – dinner’s done, dishes washed and you’re finally putting up your feet. Then the choc chip cookie craving hits, and you can’t shake it. You quickly whip up a batch of NOMU MiniMakes chewy cookie dough and then…’CHILL FOR 1 HOUR’!? Screaming, crying (hi Swifties), what a crisis.

Is chilling your cookie dough REALLY worth the wait? Absolutely, and here’s exactly why…

The benefits of chilling your cookie dough

#1 It makes the dough easier to work with

The melted butter in our Classic Chewy Cookie recipe means the dough is initially very soft, so will be a sticky mess if portioned straight away. Chilling the dough gives the butter time to firm up, making it easier to work with.

#2 Chilling puts the ‘thick’ in ‘thick & chewy’

No sad misshapen cookie crisps for us please, we’re all here for that glorious thick and fudgy texture! Chilling your dough prevents your cookies from spreading too much during baking by giving it time to firm up. This creates thicker cookies with crisp, caramelised edges and a soft interior!

#3 Bonus trip to flavour town

For a bunch of fancy-schmancy food science reasons that we won’t bore you with, chilling cookie dough for just 1 hour does wonders to enhance the flavours. If you have the luxury of time and the gift of planning, cookie dough can be chilled for as long as 72 hours to maximise this magic!

Time in the fridge simply gives all the ingredients time to meld and get to know each other better – a similar concept to marinating meat – which creates that addictive butterscotch flavour we know and love. It also gives the cookies a better ability to caramelise, giving you a beautiful golden result.

All in all, no chill time = thinner, pale cookies with an underwhelming flavour

How long should you chill your dough?

30 minutes in the fridge is enough to safeguard your cookies from spreading, but a longer chill time is where you’ll build that extra somethin’-somethin’ in flavour.

We all know that life has a tendency to be ridiculously busy (and honestly, who has the foresight to prepare cookie dough 3 days in advance!?), so 1 hour is our sweet spot for MiniMakes chewy cookies. It’s enough time to reap the rewards without a huge compromise on time.

I hear what you’re saying, but this is an emergency…I just can’t wait!

Alright, you got us! Your cookies will still resemble cookies if you skip the chill step, but they won’t be nearly as good. In desperate times, we recommend baking just one or two cookies for immediate noshing, and then stashing the rest of the dough in the fridge to bake a little later.

So, fellow bakers, what have we learned today? Chill. That. Dough!

Hungry for more? Learn all about the basics of a great choc chip cookie in our Cookies 101 post and follow us on Instagram for delicious recipe inspiration, baking tips and more!