Overnight Cookies

A Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Icebox Dough

This is the kind of recipe that earns a permanent spot in your fridge. One basic butter cookie dough gets divided into four parts, and each piece picks up its own personality: shredded coconut, peanut butter or chopped nuts, dates, or a one-two punch of cinnamon and nutmeg. Four flavors from one bowl of dough.

The icebox method earns its keep here. After flavoring each portion, the dough rolls into wax-paper-wrapped logs and chills firm. From there, you slice as many cookies as you want and bake the rest later. The chilled logs hold for a week in the fridge or several weeks frozen, so freshly baked cookies are always five minutes away.

The dough is straightforward butter, sugar, eggs, and flour with baking powder for a slight lift. Melted butter rather than creamed butter makes the dough denser and richer, the right texture for slicing into thin, crisp rounds rather than puffy drop cookies.

Pro Tips

• Chill the logs at least 4 hours, ideally overnight. Soft logs squash out of round when you slice and the cookies bake unevenly.
• Use a thin, sharp knife and slice with a clean stroke, rotating the log a quarter turn between slices to keep the rounds round.
• Pull the cookies at 7 to 8 minutes if you want them soft, 9 to 10 for crisp. They look pale when done.
• Freeze whole logs for up to a month. Slice straight from frozen and add 1 to 2 minutes to the bake time.

Variations

• Roll the logs in coarse sanding sugar before slicing for sparkly edges.
• Try chopped chocolate, pecans, or dried cranberries in the fourth portion.
• Sandwich two baked cookies around lemon curd or chocolate ganache for filled tea cookies.