That is why God created "stirring."

You can do it, it'll just take a bit longer.

You can make cookies without a hand mixer. The trick is finding a way to soften butter that does not involve melting the butter. Some microwaves do this really well. You can also start earlier and put the butter in a bowl on top of the fridge or something [where it's a little warm but not very warm] or in a sunny window. Keep in mind a basic hand mixer will only cost $20 or so from a drugstore or supermarket and it's the sort of thing that you could easily borrow from a neighbor, so don't give up hope! Really the only thing I won't do without a hand mixer is whipping cream or egg whites (you can do it but I find it not worth the effort)

I always just use a wooden spoon. I guess it depends on how stiff the batter is. I think I still have a hand mixer, but we only use it to make that whipped up egg white stuff (I forget what it's called...), and haven't done that for 5 years or so.

No problem.

Obviously, it depends on your recipe and ingredients, but most cookie recipes are designed so you can make them by hand. Indeed, some are better made by hand, because the flour doesn't get overbeaten and tough.

If your recipe is typical, it follows a few standard steps:

creaming the butter. Let it get a bit soft, but not mushy. Cooks' Illustrated gives this tip: soften it just until you can bend the stick of butter without breaking it, but not leave big smooodgy fingermarks in it.

Beat the butter (or shortening or whatever) with a fork or a whisk. Beat in the sugar, which helps to aerate the butter better: the little granules actually break up the butter.

Then beat in the eggs (and often some seasoning: extract or zest or whatever).

Then add the dry ingredients and stir just enough to incorporate fully. If you're adding stir-in ingredients, like chocolate chips or nuts, you can add it before the flour is fully incorporated.

The only real advantage to a mixer is that things go much faster. I almost always make cookies by hand, because a fork and a wooden spoon are much easier to clean than the mixer attachments!

Cookies spell doom. Well, almost - so you're almost doomed.

Yeah, I've NEVER used a handmixer. I use the wooden spoon, and I tend toward shortening, even though, yeah, hydrogenated. I just hate waiting for butter to soften. When I use shortening, it's CAKE. Well, cookies.

Elsa and I mix similarly as well, although I do tend to put shortening, sugar (usually a little less than is called for) egg and any extracts in at once. Then once that's whipped up nicely via my arm and a wooden spoon, I add the dry stuff. Then I have a drink or two.

Oh, and also, you might be doomed otherwise. I mean, we might ALL be, really. Cookies make it nicer along the way though.

She lurks here occasionally, the last time she did, she commented, "They're always talking about food on MetaChat".

- octothorpe about his wife.

This is not about cooking. It is about me loosing my wits ina holiday induced panic and being talked down and learing a little something too. I knew about "stirring", but not about aerating the butter and all that stuff.

I wish I could send you all cookies. It sounds like Daniel Charms is the only one who would be smart enough not to eat them, though!

rainbaby - I once had only a limited time to make chocolate chip cookies. I didn't have time for the butter to soften, and I knew if I melted it in the microwave, the cookies would spread too much in the oven. I then mixed the dough with a wooden spoon, I didn't need a mixer.

So, I melted the butter in the microwave, and instead of baking my cookies on a baking sheet, I baked them in a muffin tin. They would have less room to spread that way. I ended up with thick, chewy, chocolate chip tartlets that everyone loved. Now I always bake them that way!

whoops, I didn't put all my sentences in the right place, there :-)

Right, for softening 1 stick of butter for cookies I use about 30 sec in the microwave, on a plate to catch any meltage. I like the butter pretty soft. Your microwave might vary though.

Ooooh, that melted butter trick is one I keep meaning to try! One of the knowledgeable food chemistry people --- Harold McGee or Alton Brown or Shirley Corriher or someone wicked smart --- has an outline for producing different textures of chocolate chip cookies with different fats added in different states (solid, melted, liquid).

But if you do decide to make them with softened butter, know that it's not hard at all. Most cookie recipes predate the widespread use of electric kitchen devices like mixers; they're intended to be made by hand, no matter what the preamble in the recipe says.

What Elsa said! To soften cold sticks of butter I often put them in the center part of my (gas) stove. There's just enough heat from the pilot lights to spread through the stovetop and warm them to the soft stage in about half an hour or so. Sometimes in a rush I unwrap the butter, chop it into tablespoon sized hunks, and put it in a bowl. Then I invert over that a larger bowl which I have run under hot water until it retains a lot of heat. That works in a pinch (I don't have a microwave).

The Elsa plan is familiar to me because I am also a reader of Cook's Illustrated. One of the points they harp on in that magazine is that the butter and sugar creaming stage is vital to baked goods. It's during this stage that air is beaten into the butter, separating the fat molecules, thoroughly incorporating the sugar which will ultimately bond to the liquids and dissolve, and allow for a lighter crumb and higher rise in the final product.

You don't need a hand mixer for this, but it is worth spending extra time on this stage and really thinking about incorporating air as you do this. Look for the color change as it gets lighter. I thnk this is a bigger deal with cakes than with cookies, but still makes enough of a noticeable difference that I've adapted to the CI way.

Agree about a hand mixer though. I have a mini-black and Decker one that cost like $14.99, use it a lot, and it's lasted over 10 years.

Sometimes in a rush I unwrap the butter, chop it into tablespoon sized hunks, and put it in a bowl.

This works really well. It always surprises me (because I am a bear of very little brain, and cannot remember from one baking episode to another) how much faster small chunks of butter come to room temperature.

Two more things:
- don't worry about aerating the butter. This will happen on its own without you bothering. Just beat the butter a little, then beat in the sugar and eggs until they're fully incorporated, and the aeration will happen magically without you even thinking about it. Yay!
- you know what takes the edge off a sentence of DOOM? Cookies. Yay!

it is worth spending extra time on this stage and really thinking about incorporating air as you do this.

Ahahaha, I just directly contradicted Miko's sage advice.

Two things are equally true here:

1. When you pay attention to the creaming stages and watch for the color change, you can elevate really really good cookies to amazingly good cookies, and produce consistent results from batch to batch. It's also cool to know the science behind the results.

2. It is perfectly okay to make cookies without paying attention to all these details, and it's most important that you understand: you can do this. Today. Without any special equipment. Without any specialized knowledge. Your cookies will be delicious.

It's true...I'm not a kitchen genius, and I can't bake for shit, but I CAN make really good cookies. SO CAN YOU.

p.s. DOOM!

I always do this with a wooden spoon as well. I just do it in a glass bowl in a sink of warm water. Is that supposed to be wrong for some reason? I make good cookies...

'spode that sounds like a recipe for ME GETTING SOAKED.

I am a slacker who always creams/melts/brings to room temperature butter by putting it in the microwave since I pretty much never have butter in the fridge (just the freezer).

And I am a fan of wooden spoons, usually because I forget and leave them in pans and things and they don't get all fucked up.

And the bestest recipe ever for making cookies is the one of the back of the bag of chocolate chips. Mmm.

Crap, now I'm going to have to go make cookies tonight.

I rarely put butter in the fridge anyway. Don't use a hand mixer - work those muscles! Earn those cookies! Hup-hup!

I've done it, but I eventually broke down and got a hand mixer. Creaming the butter and sugar by hand is a pain. It was $9 at Family Dollar. (or maybe it was Big Lots... either way, I remember thinking "woo, under $10!)

And the bestest recipe ever for making cookies is the one of the back of the bag of chocolate chips. Mmm.

YES!

You're doomed if you call me cookie again.

Unless you mean it.

What Elsa said again. The funny thing about getting obsessive about making something like cookies is: why? I have made every kind of mistake you CAN make with cookies, from too much salt to overcooking to undercooking to substitutions that don't really work, and yet I have never ever made cookies that were truly inedible. Even when they needed a liberal soaking in milk, they ended up passing the rigorous "Is it better than not eating a cookie?" test.

There have been any number of CI stories and/or AskMe threads about making the "perfect" chocolate chip or peanut butter or gingerbread or oatmeal cookie, or what have you. And that is a fun pursuit if you like fine-tuning details and feeling you have reached some sort of pinnacle. But even though I read those things and learn from them, I feel an essential foreignness in these conversations in that I don't need cookies to be perfect. I just need them to be. I have yet to encounter a truly un-yummy homemade cookie.

I remember my cousin-once-removed Lisa and I making chocolate chip cookies after junior high one day, and we were SO THIRSTY after eating some. It wasn't until later that we realized we had used much more salt than was really required. It was still better than no cookies, though :-)