Chill Your Dough

by Amanda
(Idaho)

One of the things that I have discovered over the years with my cooking/baking is that chilling doughs in the fridge before cooking can have dramatic results on the end product.

Cookie doughs love the fridge. Especially drop cookies like chocolate chip cookies. The one thing you want to remember is to form the cookies before you chill them. If you slap the bowl of dough in the fridge then try to scoop cookies 1-3 hours later your will have a dry crumbly mess. So, make your dough, roll into balls, put in your cookie sheet and chill for 1-3 hours. Bake as usual. The flavor, texture, and moistness of your cookies will be awesome.

Pizza dough is the other dough that will yield the most dramatic results after chilling. For years we would make homemade pizza but it just tasted like pizza toppings on homemade bread. We wanted that chewy texture of take out pizza. This is how you can have a yummier, chewier pizza dough.

1.)Make your favorite pizza dough and roll it into a large ball. Rub the top with olive oil so it does not get a skin and put it in a glass bowl. Cover with plastic wrap.

2.)Let the dough ball raise double in size. 30 min-1 hour. Put the dough in the fridge for 3-4 hours.

3.) Roll out dough and top. Cook in a very hot oven. Like 500 degrees.

The cold yeast dough is also much easier to work with when it is cold. It does not spring back as easily and so you can roll out a larger pizza without having to toss it. Really....who knows how to toss pizza dough??

Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe