The Great Cookie Experiment: Butter Temperature

Have you ever wondered why cookies sometimes turn out flat? Too puffy? Why they are overly brown on the bottom but still gooey inside? What type of pan or liner you should use? Or am I the only one that obsesses about such things?

In the event that there is at least one of you out there who ponders these deep questions, I decided to undertake The Great Cookie Experiment. First up was testing butter temperatures since this may be one of the most critical pieces of cookie baking. In fact, I posted on The Facebook a week or so ago that I spent the entire morning making a bazillion batches of chocolate chip cookies to test out certain theories and that in the end, they all looked the same!

Well, I am here to report that I need to withdraw that claim because upon closer inspection, I found that butter temperature did, actually, make a pretty significant difference in cookie outcome.

And I’m here to share the results with you. Stay tuned over the next few weeks as I get to the bottom of more scientific and totally important cookie conundrums (feel free to inquire about certain cookie problems in the comments and I’ll add them to my to-test list!).

First of all, for the following scientific report, there are a few givens:

1) We are using a recipe that calls for room temperature or softened butter. Even though some cookie recipes call for melted butter (in fact, my personal favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe calls for melted butter), those recipes are void for these test results because they have been created based on melted butter as the base. My test was run for cookies calling for softened butter, which most do.

2) We are using the scoop and sweep flour method. The way flour is measured can significantly impact results! Read more about that fascinating topic here.

3) We are using a basic chocolate chip cookie recipe that I’ll provide at the end of this post.

4) Throughout this post, I’ll be using very technical terms for the butter temperature as follows:

Cool Room Temperature Butter: means you can push your finger gently into the butter to make an indentation but it’s not so soft that your finger easily slides through the entire stick. Make Sense?

Way Too Soft Butter: means your butter is, um, way too soft. It might even have tiny melty spots if you tried to soften too aggressively in the microwave (ahem, which I never do, right!). Your finger will easily slide through the stick of very mushy butter.

Melted Butter: means your butter is melted. Wow. These are difficult concepts, I know.

You can see in the picture below how the cookie batters already look quite different. This is right after the eggs and vanilla have been added and beaten into the batter. Please forgive the different bowl size. My life has only so many Pyrex bowls.



Now behold a bird’s eye view of the batter after the dry ingredients and chocolate chips have been added. Pretty easy to tell how the batters are different based on the butter, right?

After the cookies are baked, the differences are pretty obvious (even though I failed to recognize them in my hasty FB post of yesterweek).

The first cookie with cool room temperature butter is picture perfect. It baked evenly and held it’s shape, flattening beautifully without overspreading.

The way too soft butter cookie doesn’t look too shabby but if you look closely, you’ll notice that it’s a bit doughier and slightly greasier than the cool room temp butter cookie, although it still held it’s shape pretty well.

The melted butter cookie? Misshapen and just not up to par with the others in looks. In taste it wasn’t too far off, but like the way too soft butter cookie, it was greasier in texture and too underdone in the center even though the edges and bottom were browned (and just so you know, I eat all cookies equally so no cookies were harmed or thrown away due to superficial imperfections).

Here’s an up close and personal look at the melted butter cookie. Hardly round, and while you can’t see it, much flatter than the other cookies.

Oh, and please disregard my chipped mini platter. Totally not worth photoshopping out. It’s kind of a peek into my real life: chipped platters, misshapen cookies and all. Welcome to my world!



The way too soft butter cookie…pretty good except for the underdone middle and slightly greasy taste/texture.

And finally, the star. Cool, room temperature butter produced the prettiest cookie with the very best texture.

So there you have it: the results of the 1st installment of The Great Cookie Experiment! I’ll be bringing you other details soon like what to line the pans with (parchment, silpat or lightly greased) along with a few other good tips. In the meantime, here’s the cookie recipe I used and again, feel free to leave any questions/feedback in the comments!

Happy Cookie Baking!

Basic Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe {For The Great Cookie Experiment} Yield: 1-2 dozen Prep Time: 20 minutes Cook Time: 12 minutes Total Time: 32 minutes Print Ingredients 1 cup butter, cool room temperature

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup packed light brown sugar

3 large eggs

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

3 1/2 cups flour

2 cups chocolate chips Instructions Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter and both sugars together until well mixed. Add eggs and mix for 2-3 minutes, until the batter is light in color. Add salt, vanilla, baking soda and mix. Add flour and chocolate chips together and mix until combined. Drop cookie batter by rounded tablespoon onto parchment paper or silpat lined baking sheets and bake for 10-12 minutes until lightly golden around edges but still soft in the center. Recipe Source: adapted from this recipe