Make Bakery-Perfect Cookies Every Time With This Dough-Shaping Tip

Bakers around the world have come up with special tips and tricks to perfect cookie recipes. From adding cayenne pepper to chocolate chip cookies, which is one of Martha Stewart's best tips for baking delicious cookies, to freezing cookie dough before baking, there are always steps and ingredients that can elevate even the best chocolate chip cookie recipes and turn each piece into an aesthetic thing of beauty, as well as something that tastes amazing. 

To make cookies that look like they could be sold in a bakery, wield an ice cream scooper to portion out an equal amount of dough for each cookie. To form what will become an individual cookie, pull apart the scooped mass of cookie dough and split the piece into two equal halves. Next, press the two separated mounds of cookie dough back together and lay the cookie onto the cookie pan with the rough, split side facing up. Though the cookie dough pieces may not look uniform or particularly pretty as they are slid into the oven, the end result will be all the proof you need to repeat this method. 

When cookie dough is pressed tightly into a ball, a cookie will be more compact and dense, but if you're looking to bake cookies with crispy edges, this halved and jagged approach will result in the type of treat that could easily be placed on display in a shop. After the dismantled-and-put-back-together cookies have baked to golden perfection, the warm cookies that you take out of the oven will be thick and irresistible to walk away from. The texture of these cookies will be crunchy on the outside and perfectly tender in the middle — ideal to make the best ice cream sandwiches or to simply eat on the spot.

Though this extra shaping step might seem subtle when placing cookie dough onto a cookie sheet to bake, the simple effort will have a noticeable impact on the texture of your baked goodies, and your friends will be asking for your baking secrets. Make more than what you think you'll need, as these treats will go fast.