Edible Cookie Dough

Published May 30, 2024

Edible Cookie Dough
Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Spencer Richards.
Total Time
50 minutes
Prep Time
10 minutes
Cook Time
20 minutes, plus 20 minutes’ cooling
Rating
4(96)
Notes
Read community notes

The tasty practice of sneaking a couple bites of cookie dough before baking has likely been around as long as cookies themselves, but making and tucking into a full bowl of raw dough — made expressly to eat — is relatively novel. Perhaps it was the success of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, a flavor that popped up some time in the mid-1980s, that started the mass love affair, but the concept stuck, and brands and businesses have fully embraced it. This at-home version is safely edible; it’s made without eggs and the flour is heat-treated, or baked to a temperature of 165 degrees, to rid it of harmful bacteria. (And without the eggs, as well as a few other ingredients, this dough cannot be baked.) Regular or mini semi-sweet chocolate chips are a classic mix-in, but feel free to replace them with equal amounts of white chocolate chips, M&M’s or chopped nuts.

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Ingredients

Yield:6 to 8 servings (about 2 cups)
  • 1cup/125 grams all-purpose flour
  • ½cup/113 grams unsalted butter (1 stick), softened
  • cup/73 grams packed light brown sugar
  • 2tablespoons/25 grams granulated sugar
  • 2tablespoons milk, dairy or nondairy
  • 1teaspoon vanilla extract
  • ½teaspoon kosher salt (such as Diamond Crystal)
  • ¾cup/130 grams regular or mini semi-sweet chocolate chips, or a combination
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (8 servings)

287 calories; 17 grams fat; 10 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 5 grams monounsaturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 35 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram dietary fiber; 21 grams sugars; 3 grams protein; 126 milligrams sodium

Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

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Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Heat-treat the flour: Heat oven to 400 degrees. Line a sheet pan with parchment, add the flour and spread it into a thin layer. Bake flour for 5 minutes (see Tip). Cool flour completely.

  2. Step 2

    In a large bowl, combine butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar. Beat on medium-high with a hand mixer until the mixture is light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in milk and vanilla until combined.

  3. Step 3

    Add the salt, then sift in the flour. Beat on medium-low until well combined and no white streaks remain. Fold in the chocolate chips by hand with a spatula or wooden spoon. Serve immediately, using a cookie scoop or spoon to transfer to small bowls, or store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week. (The cookie dough will be very soft if served right away; if you’d like it a bit firmer, refrigerate the dough for 15 minutes and check the firmness, adding more time to increase firmness if desired. If refrigerated for several hours or overnight, bring it to room temperature about 30 minutes before serving to soften.)

Tip
  • A quarter sheet pan or 9-by-13 baking pan is ideal for heat-treating the flour because of the small amount used in the recipe; if a standard-size sheet pan is used, double or triple the amount of flour and store leftovers in an airtight container. Once the flour is baked, use the parchment to quickly but carefully transfer it to a small bowl and use an instant-read thermometer to take the temperature. It should read at least 165 degrees.

Ratings

4 out of 5
96 user ratings
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tastes EXACTLY like the stuff in cookie dough ice cream, would probably be really easy to incorporate into a homeade dish.

This recipe looks so good! I can’t wait to make it.

How does one “sift in the flour” when adding it to the butter/sugar mix? Does that mean sift it on top of the mix in small amounts & then stirring it in gradually?

If my memory of the 70s doesn’t totally escaped me, I would think the invention of eating cookie dough batter by the bowl would’ve come at that time pretty much around my first years in college. Nothing like a bowl of cookie dough for the munchies!

Worked well with a GF flour blend (with xanthan) that I didn't like for anything else. Unlike most GF swaps, you could probably use any GF blend with no extra tweaks. I think the xanthan helps, though.

I use végan ingrédients and I also usually use ground almonds and not wheat flour. This way I avoid the oven, and it can be a fulfilling snack.

This can also be used to make cookie dough cheesecake. Just roll into small balls and add to your favorite plain cheesecake recipe with an Oreo crust and chocolate ganache on top. Delicious!

What about also using commercial pasteurized eggs?

I have used Egg Beaters in raw cookie dough for years; it works fine, and you can bake some of the dough if you want. I freeze the excess Egg Beaters in ice cube trays, 2 TBSP in each space. They thaw quickly (2 cubes per egg) when you need them. I also use a scoop to place the cookie dough on a lined baking pan and freeze them. Bake them later, or eat raw & frozen. Or cut a few into small pieces and mix into good vanilla ice cream, along with a bit of melted choc chips - yummy!

An a cookie dough lover undergoing chemo, thank you for making my food craving dreams come true!

I'm conditioned from years of licking out the batter bowl to expect a delicious baked goodie afterwards. I think just making dough to eat will leave me hanging. Might be nice as an icecream add-in though.

If you have an airfryer, feel free to use that to "bake" the flour. It'll go alot quicker than a traditional oven

If you use fresh eggs, like from a farmer or farmers’ mkt, eating raw eggs is not a problem. That said, I am 68 and have eaten raw eggs (& ground beef) all my life and have never gotten sick.

That still leaves the flour as a problem — the CDC advises raw flour is just as dangerous as it can be a carrier of e coli and salmonella. So thanks to NYT Cooking for coming up with a recipe that avoids the problem!

This is probably overkill, but my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe browns the butter first, adding a lovely deep and slightly nutty flavor, and tosses a pinch of cinnamon in with the flour. I'm going to try that with this recipe. And probably eat the whole batch for dinner.

I’ve never found a cookie dough that wasn’t edible… going to be 69 in June.

This can be made into a diabetic friendly treat by subbing in almond or chickpea flours, reducing carbs and adding protein. And by using a sugar substitute, reducing calories and carbs.

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