$349.95
$449.95
Williams Sonoma
$349.95
$449.95
Crate & Barrel
The best tools for baking cookies, as recommended by professional bakers
Plus why the freezer is your friend and preheating your oven is never an option.
$349.95
$449.95
Williams Sonoma
$349.95
$449.95
Crate & Barrel
Each type of cookie has a signature shape, which you achieve using specific tools. Below we listed what you’ll need to form drop, cutout, spritz and slice-and-bake cookies, plus expert guidance about what to look for when shopping for each tool.
Used for: Drop cookies
Cookie scoops help you create balls of dough that are the exact same size, causing the batch to bake evenly, says Barbone. She prefers cookie scoops with a trigger handle since they quickly release balls of dough, which makes shaping drop cookies fast and efficient.
Cookie scoops come in a variety of sizes, which you’ll see listed as a number that corresponds to the number of scoops per quart of dough. For example, a #40 scoop gives you about 40 scoops per quart, while a #10 scoop gives you about 10 scoops per quart — this means the #10 scoop is larger than the #40 scoop. There’s no standard scoop size you should look for, but #40 is common for cookies, says Barbone. If you make cookies often, consider buying a large, medium and small scoop so all your bases are covered.
Used for: Cutout cookies
You don’t technically need to invest in a rolling pin since you can use household objects as alternatives, like wine bottles or canned foods. But a rolling pin tends to offer more even results, so if you plan on baking often, it’s nice to have.
Rolling pins come in many styles, all of which help you flatten dough. But Osborne prefers French tapered rolling pins, which are shaped similarly to batons and wider in the middle with narrower ends. She says French rolling pins are easy to maneuver and give you lots of surface area to place your hands while going over the dough.
Used for: Cutout cookies
Cookie cutters come in hundreds of shapes. You can buy them in basic shapes like circles, hearts and squares, or holiday themed shapes like gingerbread men and menorahs. Cookie cutters also come shaped as animals, numbers, letters, symbols and more. Some sites even let you create custom cookie cutters, which is a great option for themed events.
While shopping, you’ll see plastic and metal cookie cutters, either of which will do. But each material offers its own strengths and weaknesses.
Metal cookie cutters give cookies clean, crisp edges and they’re easy to clean since you can put them in the dishwasher, says Barbone. But they’re sharper compared to plastic cutters, so they’re not great for kids to use. Metal cookie cutters are also quite durable, says Stankiewicz. If you care for them properly, they can last for decades. In fact, Stankiewicz says her family’s copper cookie cutters have been passed down for generations and are an heirloom of sorts.
Plastic cookie cutters, on the other hand, are duller compared to metal options. This makes them suitable for kids, but they can give cookies messy, smushed edges, says Barbone. And even if the plastic cookie cutters you buy say they’re dishwasher safe, it’s best to hand-wash them, says Stankiewicz. Heat from the dishwasher can cause them to melt or become misshapen.
Used for: Spritz cookies
A cookie press is a cylindrical tool with a plunger on one end and interchangeable discs on the other. Each disc has cutouts on it, creating different shapes. You load dough into the body of the press and use the plunger to push it through the disc’s holes, resulting in perfectly shaped cookies. You move the press’ head along the sheet pan and push out one cookie at a time.
Barbone recommends buying a cookie press that comes with metal discs, which cleanly release dough so each cookie’s shape is clearly defined. If possible, avoid plastic cookie presses as they’re more prone to getting clogged and breaking, she says.
Used for: Slice-and-bake cookies
After rolling your cookie dough into logs, you wrap each one in plastic cling wrap and put them in the refrigerator for a few hours or overnight. The plastic wrap keeps the dough fresh while it’s chilling and it helps keep out odors and moisture. If you’re looking for a plastic wrap alternative, you can opt for reusable beeswax wrap. Some brands also make silicone tools to help you size, shape and store slice-and-bake cookie dough.
Putting cookies in the oven is often the most nerve-wracking step for home bakers — no one wants to put effort into perfecting dough and end up with a burnt final product. To ensure cookies come out golden brown and ready to sink your teeth into, consider using the below expert-recommended tools.
Despite setting your oven to a specific temperature, it probably doesn’t warm up exactly where you want it, unless it was recently calibrated, says Stankiewicz. This means your baked goods are likely cooking at a slightly lower or slightly higher temperature than you’re anticipating, which impacts cooking time. To help confirm your oven reaches the right temperature before adding your cookies, Stankiewicz recommends buying an oven thermometer. It hooks onto the oven’s racks and reads its internal temperature, which you can monitor while your oven is preheating to adjust its settings accordingly.
Experts recommend keeping a couple half-sheet pans in your kitchen at all times because they’re so versatile. You can use them to bake and cook sweet and savory foods, plus they last for years if cared for properly.
For cookies specifically, it’s best to use rimmed sheet pans, experts told us. “I never use a sheet pan without a rim because there’s always a chance something could slide off the edge,” says Barbone. This is especially the case with cookies. Recipes often tell you to rotate the sheet pan halfway through baking to ensure all of the cookies bake evenly, and if your sheet pan doesn’t have a rim, the cookies may slide off during this process.
Additionally, be sure to pay attention to the color of your sheet pan. Darker sheet pans tend to conduct more heat, which means the bottoms of your cookies will bake faster than the tops, says Stankiewicz. This is often why people end up with cookies that are burnt on the bottom but still raw on top. Use a lighter colored sheet pan to avoid this issue, says Stankiewicz.
Parchment paper and silicone baking mats serve the same purpose and are essentially interchangeable when it comes to baking cookies. They line your sheet pan, provide a nonstick surface to bake on and make cleanup a breeze. You can also line your pan with tin foil, but since the material conducts heat, it can make the bottoms of your cookies darker and speed up baking time, so it’s not preferred, says Sarah House, the food innovation chef and recipe and development lead at Bob’s Red Mill.
Beyond one being disposable and the other being reusable, the main difference between parchment paper and silicone baking mats is how much cookies can grip them. Silicone baking mats are so nonstick that cookies don’t have much to grasp onto, which might cause them to spread a little bit too much while baking, says Barbone. Parchment paper is still nonstick, but cookies can grip to it more, reducing spread. Thus, Barbone usually opts for parchment paper instead of silicone baking mats for cookies, but it’s ultimately a personal preference.
Silicone baking mats come in a variety of sizes, so buy one that fits your sheet pan. As for parchment paper, Stankiewicz recommends buying it in sheets rather than rolls. Rolled parchment paper can be challenging to work with since it tends to curl in on itself, making it challenging to cut to your desired size. Parchment paper that comes in sheets is flat and won’t curl, so cutting it is easy.
It’s important to keep track of how long cookies have been in the oven relative to the estimated bake time detailed by your recipe. You can use a mechanical or digital timer or devices like your phone or watch.
Remember that a recipe’s estimated bake time is just a guideline, says Stankiewicz. Factors like the type of oven you’re using, whether you preheated it and how many trays of cookies are baking at once can impact baking time, experts told us. Because of this, one of the best ways to determine cookie doneness is by using your nose. “Once you start smelling the cookies, start checking on them,” says Stankiewicz. From there, pay attention to the cookies’ color and texture. Fully baked cookies are usually golden brown and have a matte rather than glossy appearance, so once you see those signs and smell them, pull them out of the oven.
Upon taking your cookies out of the oven, let them cool on the sheet pan for five to 10 minutes before gently moving them to a cooling rack with a spatula, says House. If you leave cookies on a hot pan, they’ll continue baking and can become overdone. But placing cookies on a cooling rack allows air to circulate around them, cooling them quickly and preventing extra baking.
Once the cookies are cool, you can decorate them however you’d like, although it’s not a required step — they’re delicious straight out of the oven. Dust your cookies with powdered sugar, make a glaze or frosting, top them with sprinkles and more. Some helpful decorating tools include an offset spatula for spreading glaze and frosting, and if you want to get fancy, a set of piping tips and piping bags can help you create detailed designs, says House. You can also make a piping bag out of a plastic sandwich bag.
As long as you bake cookies all the way through, most batches have a week-long shelf life, experts told us. Store them in a container with a tightly sealed lid to keep air out, and stack them with parchment paper between each layer so they don’t stick together.
If you need to store fully baked cookies beyond a week, Barbone recommends freezing them. The best way to do so is by laying the cookies out on a sheet pan or plate and putting them in the freezer. Once they’re frozen, transfer them to an airtight container or tightly sealed bag, like a Ziploc or reusable silicone storage bag. They keep well for at least three to five months, says Osborne.
Throughout their years of baking cookies, our experts have seen and experienced their fair share of mistakes. Below, they’re sharing tips for how to avoid common issues in the kitchen.
At NBC Select, we work with experts who have specialized knowledge and authority based on relevant training and/or experience. We also take steps to ensure that all expert advice and recommendations are made independently and with no undisclosed financial conflicts of interest.
Zoe Malin is an associate updates editor at NBC Select who writes about kitchen tools, including pie making tools, dinnerware sets, cookware sets, meal prep containers, ice cream makers and more. For this article, she interviewed four experts about how to make cookies and the tools they find helpful while doing so.
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