Pro Tips: How to Roll Cookie Dough

There’s a right way and a wrong way to roll out cookies. Pastry chef Mindy Segal shows us how it’s done

Pastry chef Mindy Segal has a lot of strong opinions about cookie dough. "You want to control the dough, you don't want the dough to control you," says the chef-owner at Mindy's Hot Chocolate and author of Cookie Love. In other words, it's important to pay attention to the process to get the perfect, even, Instagram-worthy cookies you desire. We took notes from Segal while she rolled out a cream cheese dough—a technique which can be applied to any buttery, soft cookie dough.

Segal begins by cutting the dough into separate pieces, and then bringing it back together to one mass. By using her hands to knead and roll out the dough, she’s bringing the dough to an optimal working temperature so it won't crack when she works with it. Next, she uses a rolling pin to pat the dough flat before beginning to roll; she rolls on a lightly floured, rectangular piece of parchment paper, which makes it easy to turn and flip the dough when needed. Using short, quick movements with the rolling pin gives her more control, ensuring a consistent thickness throughout. And the cookies that resulted? Perfection.

Now that you're schooled on the technique, get out there and make some cookies »