Why You Should Rest Your Cookie Dough Overnight

The new season of The Great Australian Bake Off has officially arrived as of today and to get into the spirit we’ve been asking the contestants for some of their favourite hacks and recipes. So far, this has given us Laura Foo’s mind-blowing baking paper trick and, this week, we’re privileged to have a hack from Adam Miller for perfect cookie dough.

Bake Off at Home: Adam Miller’s cookie dough hack

Crafting the perfect biscuit dough is an art form, but it’s one that just requires a bit of patience, according to Bake Off contestant Adam Miller.

Miller’s top hack is simply to let your dough rest overnight before cooking, which gives it a chance to further develop the flavours. It’s a trick he picked up from the baking brains trust on Instagram.

Here’s how Miller described it to us over email:

“The simple act of patience will take your biscuit game to the next level! While we couldn’t do this in biscuit week in the Bake Off shed, I generally rest my biscuit dough at home in the fridge overnight (up to 76 hours) before I cook the biscuits.”

“This gives the dough a chance to develop and enhance its flavours resulting in a more complex and delicious biscuit. And as an added bonus, resting the dough also improves the texture of your biscuit. So much benefit for so little effort!”

“I know waiting can be the hardest thing, so my advice is to cook a handful of your biscuits the day you make the dough to satisfy your cookie craving, and then cook the rest the next day. Your tastebuds will thank you!”

Miller added that this trick is especially beneficial for certain flavour palettes, like choc chip cookies!:

“This works particularly well with chocolate chip biscuits or my favourite biscuit of all time – speculaas (a Dutch spiced biscuit).”

A final hack from the master baker is to add a bit of salt to your dough:

“A bonus hack to supercharge your biscuit game – make sure you always add a pinch of salt to your dough. It brings the sweetness into focus alongside the tasty flavours in your biscuits.”

“Resting + salt = a knock-out biscuit!”

Now all you need is a cookie recipe to get you started. Luckily, we have a few of those available for you.

The Great Australian Bake Off airs Tuesdays at 8.30 pm from June 13 on FOXTEL