Christmas Pinwheel Spiral Swirl Sugar Cookies – Easy No-Chill Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What happens if you don't chill cookie dough? ›

Popping your dough in the fridge allows the fats to cool. As a result, the cookies will expand more slowly, holding onto their texture. If you skip the chilling step, you're more likely to wind up with flat, sad disks instead of lovely, chewy cookies. Cookies made from chilled dough are also much more flavorful.

As a general rule of thumb, you should refrigerate cookie dough for at least 30 minutes and up to 24 hours. More than that, and you won't see a noticeable difference in the final product. Once the dough has chilled, let it warm up at room temperature until it's just pliable (about 5 to 10 minutes).

With sharp knife, cut the dough diagonally from each corner to within 1/2-inch of center of each square. Sprinkle about 1 teaspoon colored sugar over each square. Fold alternate corners of the square to the center to form pinwheel, overlapping the dough at the center pushing down gently to seal in center.

Roll on floured surface until 1/4 inch thick. Cut with 2 1/2-inch cutter. Bake 8 to 11 minutes.

However, you can also make your sugar cookie dough a whole day in advance, wrap the dough in plastic wrap, and cool it in your fridge overnight, advises Sally's Baking Addiction. The longer it's in the fridge, the colder the dough will be, which means it's less likely to melt or spread.

Chilling cookie dough before baking solidifies the fat in the cookies. As the cookies bake, the fat in the chilled cookie dough takes longer to melt than room-temperature fat. And the longer the fat remains solid, the less cookies spread.

Chilling the dough is a key step in making sugar cookies, especially when you're making cut-outs. Even if you're tight on time, make sure to get the dough in the fridge, or even the freezer, even if it's only for a little while. Skip this step, and the dough will be sticky, and much harder to work with.

The Best Way to Chill Cookie Dough

“If you forgot to scoop the dough before chilling, you may need to let the dough warm up for 5 to 10 minutes before it becomes 'scoopable,'” Hill advises. For cutout cookies: If you're chilling it for just an hour or two, feel free to refrigerate the dough in the bowl you mixed it in.

Use a silicone baking mat or parchment paper. Coating your baking sheet with nonstick spray or butter creates an overly greasy foundation, causing the cookies to spread. I always recommend a silicone baking mat because they grip onto the bottom of your cookie dough, preventing the cookies from spreading too much.

Can you over beat sugar cookie dough? ›

Dry – “Dry” or “Crumbly” dough is a product of over-mixing or using too much of any ingredient during the mixing process. This can be reversed by adding one to two tablespoons of liquid (water, milk or softened butter) to your mix.

There's no need to chill cookie dough for most bar cookies, unless you prefer the flavor difference. We do not recommend chilling macarons, spritz cookies, or other creations that involve a cookie press or piping; this will be much more challenging with a chilled mixture. You're crunched for time.

Generally speaking, you should chill your cookie dough before baking it. But for how long? You want to give it at least 2 hours to chill through.

The short answer is: Yes. Resting your dough in the refrigerator will almost always yield better results. But why? Chilling your cookie dough in the refrigerator after mixing it allows the flour to hydrate and gives the other ingredients time to blend, resulting in a richer, more well-rounded flavor profile.