I work in a bakery that does the majority of the product from scratch. To stay ahead we make our cookie dough, portion into dough balls and freeze for later use. My problem is that once baked the cookies aren’t spreading as they normally would. Any advice on how to proceed? Maybe pull thaw overnight and let sit room temp for an hour before baking?
It only takes about 15-30 minutes for cookie dough balls to thaw. At least enough so that you can flatten them just a little before they go into the oven. If you want them to spread more than they already are, then you do need to let them thaw a bit before baking.
Don't portion them out before freezing. Pull cookie dough out of the freezer and let it sit in the fridge overnight. Then, before baking, let the dough sit on the counter for 1-2 hours. Portion it out at that time, then bake. Measure the internal temp of the cookie dough for consistency with future batches...
I just let them come to room temp on a paper lined tray. Then I put a sheet of paper or plastic over the who.e thing and give each cookie a small squish, then bake.
Is there a cookie cutter machine that cut shortbread cookie fast instead of rolling it out and use a round cookie cutter and put the leftover dough back together and roll and cut again over and over
I'm a bit OCD, I want every cookie in the exact clean round shape and thickness of 1/4 inch. The roll and cut take more time than making the dough itself ... Need a faster way to cut out shortbread cookies ... It won't be feasible because I won't be able to meet the demand when I get wholesale accounts
Not a master baker here or anything but if I'm wrong correct me but doesn't the type of fat used in the dough also affect how they 'spread' when cooked?
So our bakery does things a bit differently...we make our cookie doughs, bake off and then freeze the cookies. Each morning, we pull what we need for the day, thaw and wrap them for retail. Personally, I think your way of baking them fresh each day makes for a better product. Our way is kinda meh but it's (marginally) quicker and at the moment we're understaffed.
The downside to baking off the cookies and then freezing them is that 1) you truly do lose that fresh-baked taste and texture and 2) you have to be more careful freezing them to avoid breakage. When you freeze dough balls, that worry is eliminated. You don't really eliminate any steps by baking off first either, so really, there's zero advantage to doing it that way, unless perhaps if you have personnel that needs to open the store quickly and they don't know how to bake. That's probably the only "plus" to that method.
I totally agree with you. Unfortunately I do not have the lead on this one and can only offer my opinions. Fresh baked every day would be so much nicer.
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