10 hacks to trick people into thinking your store-bought cookie dough is homemade (2024)

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Brown sugar is a common ingredient in homemade cookie recipes, so it makes sense that adding a bit of it to a premade mix will make your dessert taste more authentic.

According to Fine Cooking, brown sugar can make cookies chewier and moister, which can help give premade dough a homemade twist.

Start by adding a few teaspoons of it and thoroughly incorporating it into your dough. You can also melt a little bit of butter, add brown sugar to it, and incorporate that into your dough if you want an extra tender cookie.

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More vanilla extract can’t hurt.

Some premade cookie dough can have a processed, almost chemical-like aftertaste, but you can mask it by adding extra flavor extracts to your dough.

You can use a splash of vanilla extract or try other variations, like almond extract or mint extract, to change up the flavors of your cookies.

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Add in extra mix-ins or toppings.

Add extra mix-ins or toppings like white chocolate chips, candies, pretzels, or nuts to break up the flavor profile of the dough.

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Add instant espresso powder for a fun kick.

Epicurious suggests tossing a teaspoon of instant espresso powder into a pre-made batch of chocolate chip cookie dough to help mask the artificial aftertaste some premade doughs have.

You can even toss in a pinch of freshly ground coffee if you don't have espresso powder.

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Upgrade the dough, then refrigerate.

After enhancing your store-bought dough with add-ins or bonus ingredients, refrigerate it overnight to let those flavors really sink in.

"Chilling dough prior to baking lends itself to more tender, well-shaped, and slightly stronger flavored cookies," Meredith Tomason, test kitchen manager for Nestle Toll House told Real Simple. "The flavor-enhancing ingredients such as vanilla, salt, spices, and sweeteners all become a bit more concentrated and heightened."

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Add in more of everything (minus the sugar).

A common complaint with store-bought dough is that it's too sweet, so some Food52.com commenters suggest adding in a little bit extra of all the ingredients, minus the sweetener. Add the pre-made dough to a mixer and add a few shakes of flour, salt, baking soda, butter, etc.

You can find the ingredients listed on the dough's packaging, or just reference any basic cookie recipe. You're just topping off the dough to decrease the overall sugar content, you aren't creating an entire second batch. This is a good option for when you have all the ingredients to make cookies, but not enough to make a full batch from scratch.

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Add Maldon salt.

There's already salt in the pre-made dough batter, but adding finishing salt or flaky Maldon salt to any baked good makes it taste that much better.

Epicurious says to sprinkle Maldonsalt on your cookies before they go into the oven.

Decrease the cooking time.

One Reddit tipster said to take the cookies out of the oven two minutes before the recommended cooking time on the package — this will give the cookies a softer, chewier finish.

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There's a lot of ingredients you can mix into box cookie mixes.

Box mix cookie dough is just a box of the dry ingredients. You typically only add eggs and butter to a box mix recipe, but A Good Tired blog says you shouldn’t stop there. Add in milk, vanilla, oatmeal, and a little bit of coconut oil to increase the flavor profile of the box mix dough.

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Add pudding to boxed mixes for a chewier cookie.

Delishably says to add pudding to your box-based cookie mix for chewier cookies.

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