Buzz
Cookies are beautiful no matter how they appear. As one of my all-time favorite treats, I'll almost always accept a cookie, never turning it down based on appearance. Yet, there's a growing trend to enhance drop cookies, focusing on achieving those perfect, jagged, crinkly tops. It turns out, there's a 'best' method for scooping your dough to get this look.
Drop cookies include classics like chocolate chip, oatmeal, and often sugar cookies. These cookies don’t need to be cut or sliced—they’re simply dropped onto the sheet pan in little mounds. You can also roll the dough into balls by hand for perfectly round, smooth cookies. I was raised to believe that chocolate chip cookies should be irregular, with their rough edges being part of their charm. I suspect my parents were teaching me to embrace my own imperfections through cookies, and since then, I’ve always preferred the lumpy-topped ones. It seems I’ve caught onto the latest trend.
My go-to method for creating those ripply, jagged-topped cookies is straightforward—scoop the dough using two forks, or as I call it, 'forking the dough.' Take two forks and rough up the dough slightly. Use the tines of both forks to pick up a portion of dough and form a messy mound. Place the uneven pile onto the sheet pan. The tines aerate and texture the dough, and it’s a fast, one-step process.
I was curious to see how my technique compared to other methods used by cookie enthusiasts to drop dough onto a baking sheet. I experimented with a variety of pre-baked shaping techniques. Starting with a store-bought dough log: I tested slicing, slicing and splitting (more on that later), rolling and splitting, and simply rolling. I also wanted to try dough from a bowl, but to keep the experiment consistent, I used the other half of the same store-bought dough log, mashing it into a mound of unshaped dough. From this mound, I forked, spooned, rolled and split, and rolled again. I repeated the 'rolled and split' (labeled as 'roll and break' on the second tray, but essentially the same) and 'rolled' methods on each tray to compare them side by side with the other techniques.
The 'split' method I referenced earlier is a shaping technique I discovered online. It involves rolling the dough into a ball, splitting it in half, pressing the torn halves together with the jagged sides touching, and then placing the dough, torn side up, on a cookie sheet. This method is said to be the key to achieving those desirable jagged, crinkly cookie tops.
I found that the 'sliced and split' method, starting with a dough log, resulted in the second most cavernous cookies. The 'forked' method, using dough from a bowl, produced the spikiest cookie. The 'rolled and split' technique yielded one cookie with a nice ripple and another nearly smooth one. I was surprised by the inconsistency, especially since I carefully handled both cookies to avoid squashing them when splitting the dough ball. This proved challenging, as the dough can soften quickly after being rolled in your warm hands. The 'sliced only' technique produced the next most wavy cookies, followed by 'spooned' from a bowl. The smoothest cookies, both from the log and the bowl, came from the 'rolled' method (no surprise there).
My cookie-shaping experiment revealed that there are three methods for creating a wonderfully rugged cookie, but only one is the quickest, simplest, and most reliable. While both 'sliced and split' and 'rolled and split' produced crinkly-topped cookies, if you're working with a bowl of dough and you want consistently spiky cookies, forking is the way to go. The forking method is fast and consistent compared to the 'rolled and split' method, which involves two extra steps. Those extra steps add time to the process, and depending on the dough's warmth, you may end up with uneven textures. (It’s important to note that this experiment is about small-batch, homemade cookies. Large-scale bakeries with high production volumes will use different methods to maximize speed and consistency.)
If you're working with a store-bought cookie dough log, the 'slice and split' method works great and is just as fast as forking. This method doesn't cause the dough to warm up in your hands, nor does it get compacted during the rolling process, allowing the dough to stay airy and split in a more uneven way. If you prefer to keep your hands clean, simply transfer the dough to a bowl and use forks to shape it at any point.
While this revelation may have been a game-changer for you, rest assured, all of these methods result in stunning drop cookies. I even developed a new fondness for rolled cookies, as they were the only ones that produced a charming cracked surface. Depending on the recipe and other variables, you may end up with cookies that are thicker or flatter.
