The Joy of Cookie Dough: A Baker's Favorite Treat

For many bakers, cookie dough is more than just an ingredient – it's a passion. It's the best part of baking cookies, and the reason I love to bake so much is because I really like cookie dough. There's something about the combination of sugar, butter, eggs, and flour that just makes my heart skip a beat. So, how do you make the most of this delicious ingredient? The key is to divide it into manageable pieces, allowing for easy rolling out.

Divide and Conquer

To make cookie dough workable, I divide it into four equal pieces and refrigerate them until they're very solid. This makes rolling out a breeze, as each piece can be easily flattened into a disc. By dividing the dough into smaller pieces, I can also control the size of my cookies more accurately. The result is four little discs of dough, chilled to perfection in the fridge for two hours.

Letting it Set

After the dough has chilled, I let it sit at room temperature for about 10-15 minutes. This allows the dough to relax and become easier to work with. During this time, I prepare my filling – a cardamom sugar walnut dried cherry mix that's sweet, savory, and utterly delicious. The trick to making the perfect filling is to break up the brown sugar into small pieces, ensuring it's well combined but still retains some texture. Dried cherries add a touch of sweetness, while walnuts provide a satisfying crunch.

The Filling: A Key to Success

What holds the filling together and keeps it stuck onto the dough is a special jam – like glue, except it tastes amazing! This secret ingredient is what takes these cookies from good to great. The key is to use high-quality ingredients and not be afraid to experiment with different flavors and textures.

Rolling Out the Dough

Now that my dough has chilled and I have my filling ready, it's time to roll out the dough. To do this effectively, I sprinkle a little flour onto my work surface – dusting both sides of the dough to prevent it from sticking. The trick to rolling out the dough is to keep it moving, using gentle swipes and turns to shape the dough into a circle. Don't worry if the resulting shape isn't perfect; it's all about texture and flavor.

Assembling the Cookies

With my dough rolled out and filling ready, it's time to assemble the cookies. I sprinkle a quarter of the filling onto one half of the dough circle, leaving a small border around the edges. This is where the magic happens – as the cookie bakes, the filling caramelizes, creating a sweet and sticky glaze.

Cutting and Rolling

To cut out my cookies, I use a bench scraper to create even wedges from each quarter-circle. The wider wedges will be thicker and more tender, while the smaller ones will be crunchier and more delicate. As I roll each wedge into shape, I apply gentle pressure to ensure they remain closed.

Baking and Cooling

Finally, it's time to bake my cookies! Preheated to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, they'll take about 15-20 minutes to perfect. During this time, I let them cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely. As they rest, the filling will continue to set and the cookie will reach its full flavor potential.

The Reward: Quality Control

After what feels like an eternity, my cookies are finally ready! The hardest part of baking cookies is putting them away in a tin – not because they're too fragile, but because it's just so tempting to devour them all before anyone else gets a chance. This is where quality control comes in – taking one last bite of each cookie to ensure that the texture, flavor, and balance are spot on.

And That's Not All

As I mentioned earlier, my love for cookie dough extends beyond this recipe. In fact, I've developed several other recipes over time, each with its unique twist and charm. My colleagues have also joined in on the fun, creating their own innovative cookie creations that can be found on The New York Times Cooking website. If you're a fellow cookie enthusiast or just looking to try something new, I invite you to explore these recipes and join me in the world of cookie baking – where there's always room for improvement, but never enough time to enjoy the fruits of your labor!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello hello we're testing this is a test okay hi i'm melissa clark and i'm making one of my favorite holiday cookies for you today i'm making rugelach with cherry and cardamom 11 months out of the year i'm a very normal person and i make cookies just you know whenever i want to make cookies but come december i go into this cookie frenzy and i can't stop first of all i love sharing things that i bake but really i love to bake cookies it is the most fun thing so i'm very grateful that the holidays gives me an excuse first step for regular is you have to make the dough and you have to make the dough ahead of time because it needs time to chill if you try to roll it out right after you make it it's going to be a sticky mess so give yourself some time cream cheese it must be soft you have to take it out of the fridge a couple of hours ahead or you can cheat and put it in the microwave on low for like 10 seconds because it's going to mix in with the butter more easily if it's super soft already so also butter should be soft you're looking for no lumps at all it should be perfectly smooth before you add the rest of the ingredients this is not very much sugar because the filling is so sweet and you kind of want the contrast between the dough which is a little bit sweet and salty and then that lovely cherry jam okay and just a little bit of vanilla you know like a teaspoon or a couple of caps full or you just can just pour some doesn't matter and i've got my salt and now i'm gonna slowly add the flour so just beat until the flour is completely incorporated you don't see any white traces of flour it's such an easy dough to make because it just comes right together oh it's a really good dough half of the reason that i like to bake cookies so much is because i really like cookie dough it's the best now i'm going to divide this up into four pieces and put it in the fridge until it's very solid and the reason that you do this in four pieces is that it makes it so much easier when you roll it out so i have this little triangle i'm just gonna form it into a ball and then i'm gonna flatten it into a disc so i have my four little discs of dough and i'm gonna put them in the fridge for two hours so the dough has chilled for a couple of hours it's a little too firm to roll out so i'm gonna let it sit at room temperature for like five ten minutes and i'm gonna make the filling while it sits so for the filling i'm gonna do a cardamom sugar walnut dried cherry mix so you're kind of just breaking up the brown sugar really i mean you're whisking but you just want to break up the brown sugar and get this well combined and there can be a few lumps of brown sugar you just want to make sure they're small you don't want big lumps dried cherries are a little bit sweeter than the um golden raisins that i usually use and then walnuts you don't have to toast them you can toast them i didn't so this is a really dry filling and what keeps it stuck onto the dough is the jam it's like glue except you know tastes good i think the dough is ready to roll i'm just going to add a little bit of flour to my work surface i'm just dusting both sides the trick to rolling out either dough is to keep it moving you know you want to turn it over swipe up some more flour and this helps it not stick to the counter and i'm attempting to roll this into a circle and i'm really bad at rolling things into a circle so if this doesn't look perfect it's still going to taste great i'm looking for about an eighth of an inch that is round as it's gonna be and that looks great and now i'm gonna fill it i've got just plain cherry preserves use whatever flavor you want but the cherry just it works so nicely with the cardamom this one is pretty chunky it's really cool when you eat these because you've got the dried cherry but then you also have these like jammy cherries which are just delicious and now i'm going to sprinkle a quarter of the filling on top of this you can use a knife i've just got my handy bench scraper and i'm going to cut this into 12 wedges like you're cutting up a pie you do quarters and then each quarter you have to do into thirds try to make them even but it's no big deal if they're not 100 even the smaller ones get like really kind of caramelized and really crisp and then the bigger ones stay sort of soft and more like a pastry i'm rolling from the wide part down to the tip you just want the tip to be underneath the regular so that it stays closed in a way these are self-decorating because they're just so pretty when you pull them out they're you know texturally interesting they've got the color they've got the red for the jam and the different shapes so when they come out of the oven you don't have to do anything because they look great i'm going to put them on cookie sheet and you want to put them about an inch apart if you put them straight in the oven they're going to kind of unwind and look really sloppy and if you chill them first they're going to keep their shape better when they're baked so these have chilled for 30 minutes they are nice and firm and now i'm going to brush them with milk the milk is going to make them really brown in the oven and it's also going to make this cardamom sugar stick to it so my oven is set to 350 and we're going to bake these for 15 to 20 minutes after you bake these you want to let them cool on the baking tray you're going to notice that the filling leaks out and that pool of filling is caramelized cardamom flavored cherry jam and it is like candy it is delicious the hardest part of baking cookies is putting these away in a tin and not eating all of them because you don't supposed to give them to people so that is hard but you have to try one right quality control the texture is perfect and you know what's so great the sweet salty balance the dough is a little salty and the filling is sweet so good there are so many more cookie recipes i developed another seven of them and my colleagues have developed plenty of them on nyt cooking so check us out make cookies make too many cookies and happy holidays everybody happy baking youhello hello we're testing this is a test okay hi i'm melissa clark and i'm making one of my favorite holiday cookies for you today i'm making rugelach with cherry and cardamom 11 months out of the year i'm a very normal person and i make cookies just you know whenever i want to make cookies but come december i go into this cookie frenzy and i can't stop first of all i love sharing things that i bake but really i love to bake cookies it is the most fun thing so i'm very grateful that the holidays gives me an excuse first step for regular is you have to make the dough and you have to make the dough ahead of time because it needs time to chill if you try to roll it out right after you make it it's going to be a sticky mess so give yourself some time cream cheese it must be soft you have to take it out of the fridge a couple of hours ahead or you can cheat and put it in the microwave on low for like 10 seconds because it's going to mix in with the butter more easily if it's super soft already so also butter should be soft you're looking for no lumps at all it should be perfectly smooth before you add the rest of the ingredients this is not very much sugar because the filling is so sweet and you kind of want the contrast between the dough which is a little bit sweet and salty and then that lovely cherry jam okay and just a little bit of vanilla you know like a teaspoon or a couple of caps full or you just can just pour some doesn't matter and i've got my salt and now i'm gonna slowly add the flour so just beat until the flour is completely incorporated you don't see any white traces of flour it's such an easy dough to make because it just comes right together oh it's a really good dough half of the reason that i like to bake cookies so much is because i really like cookie dough it's the best now i'm going to divide this up into four pieces and put it in the fridge until it's very solid and the reason that you do this in four pieces is that it makes it so much easier when you roll it out so i have this little triangle i'm just gonna form it into a ball and then i'm gonna flatten it into a disc so i have my four little discs of dough and i'm gonna put them in the fridge for two hours so the dough has chilled for a couple of hours it's a little too firm to roll out so i'm gonna let it sit at room temperature for like five ten minutes and i'm gonna make the filling while it sits so for the filling i'm gonna do a cardamom sugar walnut dried cherry mix so you're kind of just breaking up the brown sugar really i mean you're whisking but you just want to break up the brown sugar and get this well combined and there can be a few lumps of brown sugar you just want to make sure they're small you don't want big lumps dried cherries are a little bit sweeter than the um golden raisins that i usually use and then walnuts you don't have to toast them you can toast them i didn't so this is a really dry filling and what keeps it stuck onto the dough is the jam it's like glue except you know tastes good i think the dough is ready to roll i'm just going to add a little bit of flour to my work surface i'm just dusting both sides the trick to rolling out either dough is to keep it moving you know you want to turn it over swipe up some more flour and this helps it not stick to the counter and i'm attempting to roll this into a circle and i'm really bad at rolling things into a circle so if this doesn't look perfect it's still going to taste great i'm looking for about an eighth of an inch that is round as it's gonna be and that looks great and now i'm gonna fill it i've got just plain cherry preserves use whatever flavor you want but the cherry just it works so nicely with the cardamom this one is pretty chunky it's really cool when you eat these because you've got the dried cherry but then you also have these like jammy cherries which are just delicious and now i'm going to sprinkle a quarter of the filling on top of this you can use a knife i've just got my handy bench scraper and i'm going to cut this into 12 wedges like you're cutting up a pie you do quarters and then each quarter you have to do into thirds try to make them even but it's no big deal if they're not 100 even the smaller ones get like really kind of caramelized and really crisp and then the bigger ones stay sort of soft and more like a pastry i'm rolling from the wide part down to the tip you just want the tip to be underneath the regular so that it stays closed in a way these are self-decorating because they're just so pretty when you pull them out they're you know texturally interesting they've got the color they've got the red for the jam and the different shapes so when they come out of the oven you don't have to do anything because they look great i'm going to put them on cookie sheet and you want to put them about an inch apart if you put them straight in the oven they're going to kind of unwind and look really sloppy and if you chill them first they're going to keep their shape better when they're baked so these have chilled for 30 minutes they are nice and firm and now i'm going to brush them with milk the milk is going to make them really brown in the oven and it's also going to make this cardamom sugar stick to it so my oven is set to 350 and we're going to bake these for 15 to 20 minutes after you bake these you want to let them cool on the baking tray you're going to notice that the filling leaks out and that pool of filling is caramelized cardamom flavored cherry jam and it is like candy it is delicious the hardest part of baking cookies is putting these away in a tin and not eating all of them because you don't supposed to give them to people so that is hard but you have to try one right quality control the texture is perfect and you know what's so great the sweet salty balance the dough is a little salty and the filling is sweet so good there are so many more cookie recipes i developed another seven of them and my colleagues have developed plenty of them on nyt cooking so check us out make cookies make too many cookies and happy holidays everybody happy baking you\n"