Cookie lovers, crave no more. Assembling your own slice-and-bake cookies is certainly worth the fuss, yet they might not mirror the neat circles that you have become accustomed to when purchasing store-bought cookie dough. Not to worry, Caroline Schiff, acknowledged as one of 2022's Best New Chefs by Food & Wine, presents a solution in the form of a household item you are likely to have around: a paper towel roll. “I learnt this strategy from a food stylist to achieve picture-perfect cookies,” she explains. 

Schiff’s clever trick works wonderfully with her Brown Butter Dark Chocolate Rye Cookies. And it works just as well with any other sort of slice-and-bake cookie that you fancy. Drill down to the process: create a log out of your cookie dough (typically butter-laden shortbread), let it cool, then saw it into circles before baking. Occasionally dubbed “icebox cookies,” slice-and-bake cookies deliver a fabulous platform to be rolled in crunch-enhancing additives like coarse-grained turbinado sugar or delightful sprinkles. Plus, they're perfect candidates for freezing. Wrapped up in plastic, a log can be comfortably tucked away in your freezer for up to a whopping three months. 

Scoring perfectly well-rounded slice-and-bake cookies not only seals their fate as the showstopper of a cookie swap, it also paves the way for them baking uniformly. Now let’s walk through the steps to deliver these perfect cookies.