The Great Cookie Experiment: Butter Temperature
Have you ever wondered if butter temperature matters when it comes to making the perfect batch of cookies? If so, check out this post!
Have you ever wondered why cookies sometimes turn out flat? Too puffy? Why they are overly brown on the bottom but still gooey inside? What type of pan or liner you should use? Or am I the only one that obsesses about such things?
In the event that there is at least one of you out there who ponders these deep questions, I decided to undertake The Great Cookie Experiment. First up was testing butter temperatures since this may be one of the most critical pieces of cookie baking. In fact, I posted on The Facebook a week or so ago that I spent the entire morning making a bazillion batches of chocolate chip cookies to test out certain theories and that in the end, they all looked the same!
Well, I am here to report that I need to withdraw that claim because upon closer inspection, I found that butter temperature did, actually, make a pretty significant difference in cookie outcome.
And I’m here to share the results with you. Stay tuned over the next few weeks as I get to the bottom of more scientific and totally important cookie conundrums (feel free to inquire about certain cookie problems in the comments and I’ll add them to my to-test list!).
First of all, for the following scientific report, there are a few givens:
1) We are using a recipe that calls for room temperature or softened butter. Even though some cookie recipes call for melted butter (in fact, my personal favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe calls for melted butter), those recipes are void for these test results because they have been created based on melted butter as the base. My test was run for cookies calling for softened butter, which most do.
2) We are using the scoop and sweep flour method. The way flour is measured can significantly impact results! Read more about that fascinating topic here.
3) We are using a basic chocolate chip cookie recipe that I’ll provide at the end of this post.
4) Throughout this post, I’ll be using very technical terms for the butter temperature as follows:
Cool Room Temperature Butter: means you can push your finger gently into the butter to make an indentation but it’s not so soft that your finger easily slides through the entire stick. Make Sense?
Way Too Soft Butter: means your butter is, um, way too soft. It might even have tiny melty spots if you tried to soften too aggressively in the microwave (ahem, which I never do, right!). Your finger will easily slide through the stick of very mushy butter.
Melted Butter: means your butter is melted. Wow. These are difficult concepts, I know.
You can see in the picture below how the cookie batters already look quite different. This is right after the eggs and vanilla have been added and beaten into the batter. Please forgive the different bowl size. My life has only so many Pyrex bowls.
Now behold a bird’s eye view of the batter after the dry ingredients and chocolate chips have been added. Pretty easy to tell how the batters are different based on the butter, right?
After the cookies are baked, the differences are pretty obvious (even though I failed to recognize them in my hasty FB post of yesterweek).
The first cookie with cool room temperature butter is picture perfect. It baked evenly and held it’s shape, flattening beautifully without overspreading.
The way too soft butter cookie doesn’t look too shabby but if you look closely, you’ll notice that it’s a bit doughier and slightly greasier than the cool room temp butter cookie, although it still held it’s shape pretty well.
The melted butter cookie? Misshapen and just not up to par with the others in looks. In taste it wasn’t too far off, but like the way too soft butter cookie, it was greasier in texture and too underdone in the center even though the edges and bottom were browned (and just so you know, I eat all cookies equally so no cookies were harmed or thrown away due to superficial imperfections).
Here’s an up close and personal look at the melted butter cookie. Hardly round, and while you can’t see it, much flatter than the other cookies.
Oh, and please disregard my chipped mini platter. Totally not worth photoshopping out. It’s kind of a peek into my real life: chipped platters, misshapen cookies and all. Welcome to my world!
The way too soft butter cookie…pretty good except for the underdone middle and slightly greasy taste/texture.
And finally, the star. Cool, room temperature butter produced the prettiest cookie with the very best texture.
So there you have it: the results of the 1st installment of The Great Cookie Experiment! I’ll be bringing you other details soon like what to line the pans with (parchment, silpat or lightly greased) along with a few other good tips. In the meantime, here’s the cookie recipe I used and again, feel free to leave any questions/feedback in the comments!
Happy Cookie Baking!
Basic Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe {For The Great Cookie Experiment}
Ingredients
- 1 cup (227 g) butter, cool room temperature
- 1 cup (212 g) granulated sugar
- 1 cup (212 g) packed light brown sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
- 3 ½ cups (497 g) flour
- 2 cups (340 g) chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter and both sugars together until well mixed.
- Add eggs and mix for 2-3 minutes, until the batter is light in color. Add salt, vanilla, baking soda and mix. Add flour and chocolate chips together and mix until combined.
- Drop cookie batter by rounded tablespoon onto parchment paper or silpat lined baking sheets and bake for 10-12 minutes until lightly golden around edges but still soft in the center.
Recipe Source: adapted from this recipe
Hi Mel!
I agree this sure is strange! It sure has kept my mind busy, trying to think of possibly variables that could have cause each batch to turn out the same. I didn’t microwave my butter, instead I heated it up in a sauce pan (not too sure if this would cause much change). I also didn’t grease, or line my baking sheet with parchment paper. Instead I just rolled my cookie dough into balls by hand, and placed them on the plain baking sheet. In your opinion do you think not greasing or lining your baking sheet would make a significant difference. Or possibly could the reason be that I rolled the cookie dough into balls by hand?
Hi Mel!
I tried this experiment myself for a science project, yet, every batch turned out the same. Every batch came out with cookies that were round, full and had held there shape. I followed your recipe, so I am very curious as to what would have caused these strange results. Did you microwave your butter? & would stirring in ingredients by hand change the outcomes? I am looking forward to hearing back from you:)
Hi Taylor – hmmm, that’s kind of strange! Although the differences are subtle, they should be apparent (like shown in the pictures in this post). I’m not sure if stirring ingredients by hand would make a difference but it very well could, I suppose, since a mixer incorporates at a totally different speed. I did microwave my butter. Did you?
Very helpful post, along with your post about chilling cookie dough! Thanks for sharing 🙂
What about chilled butter?
I know this was posted quite a few months ago and you may have even done it by now, but I’d love to see the differences baking soda makes! I’ve recipes that call for as little as 1/2 tsp baking soda and that’s it & then some that call for more or even baking soda & baking powder together! Thanks!
I am so late to the party but what was the texture of the cookie the next day? All my cookies are great out of the oven but the next day they are rock hard.
Lorraine – these cookies stay soft for 1-2 days (even longer although the texture dries out a bit).
THANK YOU FOR THIS POST! I am in the process of making sugar cookies from scratch for the first time, and the dough is MUCH stickier than in the pictures (stupid Pinterest!). Now I’m thinking it was because I tried to take advantage of my daughters nap time and microwaved my butter on half power. My butter was like your middle option, I thought “I’m sure its fine” but it stuck everywhere! I’m currently waiting for it to chill and hopefully that will bring it back to normal!
This makes me want to do my own experiment, mainly because whenever I make cookies with cold-from-fridge butter and eggs and bake them right away, they -still- look like that melted butter picture. Which makes me wonder what they’d look like if I melted the butter. O.O
(The only way I’ve been able to get cookies that look like the perfectly softened butter cookie is to decrease the butter by half and double the amount of flour. It’s ridiculous.)
First off I just want to say that I absolutely love your website! It’s helped me with meal planning for the hubby and two toddlers for a while now!
I love your cookie experiment posts! My husband refuses to eat any kind of pie or cake or brownie (blasphemy I know, I find myself quite often baking pans of brownies and then eating the whole pan by myself) but he will eat Choc. Chip cookies and so I’ve proceeded to make them at least once a week for about a year now. We really love your “perfect chocolate chip cookie” that uses melted butter because I often struggle with soft butter recipes and those ones turn out every time. But I recently tried a few soft butter cookie recipes that caught my attention and so far none of them have turned out. I’ll admit I’ve made batches and then hid them in kitchen cupboards to eat while no ones around because even though the taste was phenomenal, I just couldn’t let anyone else see how misshapen they were. So my question is how long do you generally cream your butter and sugar for? I know over beating can ruin the cookie dough, but I’ve also read in a few places that they should be beaten together for 5 to 10 minutes in a kitchen aid (which sounds like a long time to me). I know everything I read simply says “beat until light and fluffy” but I’m a bit of a perfectionist so I would love your opinion on a little bit of a more detailed instruction. 🙂
Hi Leah – I only beat my butter and sugar together for probably 1-2 minutes…the real trick, I think, is beating it for a full 3-4 minutes after you add the eggs. The batter will turn a noticeably lighter color. My aunt, who is a cookie master, swears beating it for that long after adding the eggs makes for the best cookies. Good luck!
Oh, I see now. Sorry, I guess I didn’t understand. Yes, it is very important to follow recipes! Especially the butter part of recipes.
I think this is a fun experiment and it’s fun to see the results but it’s a flawed experiment. If this original recipe calls for softened butter then of course that is how it is going to turn out best. Using a different temperature of butter isn’t going to come out quite right. My favorite recipe uses melted butter but they never come out flat because that is what the recipe calls for. I love using melted butter because it makes the cookies so chewy! But regardless, I love your blog and think experiments are always fun!
Hey Becky – I get what you are saying (my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe starts with melted butter, too) but my point in running this experiment was largely to show that butter temperature does make a difference and that the recipe instructions should be heeded – as in, if a recipe calls for softened butter, melted butter won’t yield the same results. Surprisingly, and I hear this a lot from readers, many people disregard the “softened butter” part or don’t know exactly how soft to get the butter and just go ahead and melt it. So that’s basically why I wanted to show how a cookie that is supposed to be made with softened butter will look different with the varying butter temps. 🙂
Mel,
I tried this cookie recipe along with others and for unknown reasons to me my cookies seem to turn into cookie puffs, I’ve tried different methods/cookie dough size although they taste right yet they always turn puffy and not so cookie like. Any suggestions or how do you make such beauties?
Hi Roxy – have you looked at my post on measuring flour (scoop and sweep method)? That will make a huge difference in cookie outcome. If you are using that method, you might try adding even slightly less flour. Sounds like a bit too much flour is causing your cookies to stay puffed.
What a great experiment! After getting into the Joanne Fluke Cookie Jar mystery series, and noticing her recipes called for melted butter the majority of the time and having great success with her recipes, I started using melted butter the majority of the time in my baking too. I’ve found that as long as you chill the dough about an hour prior to baking, melting the butter results in cookies that are just as uniform, thick and chewy as those made with softened butter. This was a revelation to me because I live in the foothills in a very hard-to-heat home that is mostly way to cold to obtain properly softened butter in the winter and this has made it possible for me to whip up a batch of delectable, comforting cookies any time I want. Thanks for taking this on and sharing it with us!
Aimee, hmmm, I don’t melt the butter in those cookies! My guess is you might need to use a bit less flour. Even a 1/4 cup difference and I bet it will help. Just a thought!
Ok…..so I may be on to something that has bothered me forever. Everytime I make your peanut butter choc chip cookies (I think they are in your best recipes) they never flatten out like normal cookies or like your photo of them. Do you melt your butter in that recipe or make it super duper soft? Just curious. They are still amazingly delicious but are not in the presentation category if you know what I mean. They stay almost in the shape of my cookie scooper. Drives me bonkers!
Thank you for this! I am a cookie-holic, although usually not organized enough to get my butter out early enough to soften, so I try to soften it in the microwave. More often than not it gets that melty spot in the middle. I am going to be more aware of my butter temperature from now on!
Hi Mel, I made these this morning to share with a generous group of volunteers who came over to help paint our house! They all loved them! 🙂 You don’t by any chance have a weight measurement for the flour in this, do you? Especially with 3 1/2 cups, there’s quite a bit of room for variation in the amount. My cookies came out a little flatter than yours look like, even though I followed the recipe exactly, and I’m wondering if it’s because mine had a tad less flour.
Michelle – have you seen my post on measuring flour? I use the scoop and sweep method but each cup of flour should weigh between five and 5 1/4 ounces.
I know I am the 86th commenter, but my question is LIFE OR DEATH. Are there ANY techniques that would make a CCC made without brown sugar successful? I can NOT for the life of me find brown sugar in Mexico. Whave piloncillo , which is not the same. Also, I cant find molasses to make my own brown sugar.
So, thoughts? Pllllllease help me, I miss CCC soooo badly.
Hi Tricia – I don’t know of any other good subs for brown sugar other than the ol’ molasses trick. All white sugar will definitely make the cookies less chewy – have you tried googling any other substitutions for brown sugar?
Thank you! You just answered one of my life’s great baking mystery questions!
When you test pans, try a baking stone. It’s my personal favorite way to bake cookies. Not too brown on the bottom, which makes for a softer cookie.
I always follow nancy silverton´s advice for room temp butter: soft but not greasy. There really IS a big difference in the cookies. And I can just imagine your kitchen…and your happy kids who had a ton of batches to `taste´. It´s a good thing you have them to eat all that sweet stuff!
Years ago I learned that making cookies with room temperature butter made a huge difference so seeing your experiment was quite validating to me. A long time ago, quite by accident, while trying to stay busy and listen to someone on the telephone who needed to talk, I made my chocolate chip cookies by hand. Completely by hand — just a wooden spoon. What a difference! I often share my cookie recipe but people complain that theirs never taste the same as mine. I ask if they used a mixer and they always say, “of course,” as though skipping that part of my recipe was optional. I’d be interested if you test this out…
You need to read this recipe from the New York Times about the perfect temperature for butter. Apparently, the perfect temp for butter is 65 degrees. Who knew? It also goes into different types of butter. (Did you know that European butter is 82% fat?) I read this YEARS ago, and I still remembered it so well, I had to google it after reading your post.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/17/dining/17bake.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
OK, I sound like a nerd, but that’s OK. 🙂
Do you chill your dough before baking or do you immediately start baking the cookies after mixing all the ingredients?
Michelle – I don’t chill my dough because I usually want cookies right.this.very.minute and haven’t planned ahead but I’ve added to my list of things to experiment with.
This is such a great experiment. I’ve always wondered if it really makes a difference. I guess it really does.
Have you noticed the same difference with your whole wheat chocolate chip cookie recipe?
Emily – yes, for the most part. I always use cool room temp butter for those cookies or else, because of the oats in the recipe, I find they spread too much.
Okay, I know I am a crazy cookie lady when I realize that yes I read the entire post and loved it and now need to conduct my own experiment. Thank you
Mel, This is very interesting! I’m glad you posted. And I’m also glad to see we are CCC Soul Sisters by going the America’s Test Kitchen Perfect CCC route. That’s my tried and true cookie and anyone who has eaten them agrees they are THE BEST! I mean, really, is there a better cookie out there? I think not!
is it possible to overmix the butter when creaming it with the sugars?
My daughter did this experiment with butter temperature and measured cookie diameter for her 6th grade science project – she got the same results !!
Great post
I like the middle one. First one is a little too thick and puffy and last one is too flat.
Love this post. I’ve got to say though, the cookie that looks the best to me is the melted butter version. So this is helpful to me since now I know I should always melt the butter to get the type of cookie I like.
Thank you so much for doing this. I have seriously wanted to ask you how you always get your cookies so beautiful and puffy. Mine are always flat. Can’t wait to see the results of your other experiments. Thanks again.
LOVE this concept!! I am most interested in seeing the test of the temperature of the dough AFTER it is all mixed. ex: make the cookie dough, all with the perfectly softened butter, and then bake one batch right away, refridge one batch for an hour and then maybe one for longer or something like that. I really wish I was one of your neighbors or local friends….. they must be getting lots of cookies right now :o)
I use the crisco sticks – they stay in the cupboard, so are always room temp ;-). I also use room temp eggs (or warm them up in warm water if I don’t remember to take them out earlier). More brown sugar than white (1 1/2 c. brown, 1/2 c white) and extra vanilla (2 tsp). Also, just a *bit* more flour than called for. Makes a great cookie 🙂
FABULOUS idea, mel! these results are not surprising, but sadly, i learned that the hard way rather than finding out via wonderfully-written blog post. 🙂
A few years ago, I read a NYT article about a cookie shop in NY that refrigerates their cookie dough for 72 hrs after mixing, and before baking. They said this allowed the flavors to meld properly, and significantly changed the resulting texture of the cookie. I would assume that no matter what sort of butter you use, what what mixing stye, refrigeration can save almost any cookie dough and also firm up too soft butter in the dough.
I always chill my dough for at least a day before baking, but I have never done side by side tests to see if it really makes a difference. I also use 100% brown sugar and 100% whole wheat flour (soft white wheat) which results is a darker cookie, but a still delicious, soft-in-all-the-right-places cookie. Another cookie-making tip I have learned is to shape all the dough into balls (the silicone cookie scoops sold at the registers at Bed Bath and Beyond are fabulous), freeze any extra balls on a cookie sheet, then keep them stored in a ziploc bag in the freezer until you want to bake them. Then those who love raw cookie dough can have their fix any time, and when you need a quick dessert requiring no prep work, dishes or forethought, viola. No need to thaw them, you just add about 2-3 minutes to the baking time. They will bake much taller straight out of the freezer.
Wow, cookies are important!
This is very interesting! Adding 2 Tsp of cornstarch to the dough makes for nice soft cookies (never, ever, crispy). It might be fun to experiment with that as well.
I don’t have a stand mixer and so I’ve always wondered if that makes a difference. My cookies always look like #3 and I’ve heard over mixing can make them greasy, but is there a way to mix it all well without a mixer and have them not turn out flat?
Mel, I’m wondering if you ever bake your cookies on stoneware? I sell Pampered Chef and I often get asked the question if cookies turn out flatter on stoneware. I only use my stoneware for cookies. I’ve never had a cookie experiment, but maybe I should do that:) The butter thing was super helpful! Thanks!
I love this post and I’m sending it to all the bakers and cookie lovers I know! Thank you for breaking this all down for us. I look forward to many more experiments (and cookies!) in the future! : )
I made your Perfect Chocolate Chip cookies tonight for the first time. Just as I finished making the dough exactly according to your instructions, my husband wanted me to go for a run with him. So the cookie dough set on my counter for 75 minutes until I got back from a run. I then baked them in the toaster oven because today’s temperature was 90 degrees. They turned out wonderful and were delicious. I’m looking forward to reading your continuing posts concerning cookie making. I continually refer to your bread making advice and tutorials. They have helped me tremendously in bread making. Your French Bread rolls are now a family favorite in this household.
I appreciate all the cookie baking instructions (right down to the scoop & sweep method!) I’ve always had problems with my cookies. I just bought some silicone baking mats to try. I NEED to make a perfect cookie… It can’t be that difficult, can it? Also, I am curious to know that when removing cookies from the oven, how long should they sit in the pan before removing them to the cooling rack? Thanks Mel, we’re missing you in these parts!
This is a great post! I’ve always been curious about the effect of using the different temp butters and then refrigerating the dough. As in, if you made cookies with melted butter, but then refrigerated the dough for several hours, would they taste the same as batter than had been prepared with cool, room temp butter and also refrigerated?
This is so interesting! I’ve always used room temperature butter when making cookies, so I like seeing the actual difference. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for making this small experiment. I am confused in a kitchen from time to time and butter’s temperature used to confuse me as well 🙂
Here’s a test I’d love to see:
I don’t like to mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Here’s what I always do:
After creaming the butter/sugars and mixing in eggs/vanilla, I mix the salt/baking soda/powder into the creamed mixture. After it’s thoroughly mixed, I add the flour. This always works for me, but I’ve always wondered if they would turn out better adding the dry ingredients the “traditional” way. Never wondered enough to make me want to dirty an extra bowl though. Like I said, I’m lazy.
Is it wrong that I thought about dipping that last cookie into the melted butter?
I have been eyeing this recipe for awhile, wondering about all her tips, particularly the cornstarch. What do you think? http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2013/05/13/chewy-chocolate-chunk-cookies/
Ok, I have several responses to some of your questions. For those wondering about future tests (different flours, sugar ratios, baking pans, resting/chilling time, etc.), I’ve added those to my experiment list. Here’s to 500 more batches of chocolate chip cookies in my near future! For those of you asking questions related to this post, here you go:
Several asked about shortening and without sounding like a snob, except for a few really, really old recipes on my site and the classic snickerdoodle, I don’t use shortening in chocolate chip cookies (and most others) because a) the pure, beautiful taste of butter just can’t be beat, b) I don’t like the greasy texture shortening imparts and c) I’ve never had trouble making a chocolate chip cookie that doesn’t spread with butter which is often why people turn to shortening.
Now, on to the cool room temperature butter. Many of you asked how long to get it perfectly that way. As you can understand that completely depends on the temperature of your kitchen but generally on a day when my kitchen is around 70 degrees (not 85 degrees like it is now – eek!), I leave the butter out for 45 minutes to an hour and it’s just about perfect.
Katherine – remember that this post is dedicated to cookies that start out with softened butter. My perfect cookie recipe was tested and tried (by America’s Test Kitchen) using melted butter so it doesn’t apply at all to this post. Melted butter in that recipe will be completely different than using melted butter in the recipe in this post (you can see how the amounts of both recipes differ based on how they were developed). So the melted butter Perfect Chocolate Chip cookies are still my faves but because so many other cookie recipes call for softened butter, I wanted to experiment.
As for brand of butter, I’m not exclusive, but usually buy Sam’s Club brand, Land O’ Lakes or Crystal Farms but I’ve been known to grab the generic too. And although it will make many of you faint, I never use unsalted butter. It just doesn’t make enough difference to me in taste/texture/whatever to keep it on hand.
Is that it? If I missed something, let me know!