Melted Vs Room Temperature Butter: Which Is Best For Baking Cookies?

While you may initially think that it's no big deal to use melted and room temperature butter interchangeably, the two are not the same when it comes to the science of baking cookies. In fact, we spoke to Marissa Stevens, recipe developer and food blogger at Pinch and Swirl, to get to the bottom of what their differences are, and which is the ideal type of butter to use for incredible cookies every time.

Room temperature butter tends to be the more common of the two when it comes to cookie recipes, but there's still a time and place for its melted counterpart. While baking with butter that's too soft can result in dense or greasy cakes, it can be ideal for certain cookie recipes, depending on your personal preference. "Melted butter tends to produce chewier cookies with less structure, while room temperature butter (creamed with sugar) creates a lighter, more aerated dough that bakes up cakier or crisper, depending on the sugar ratio," Stevens said.

Additionally, baking cookies that use melted butter straight from mixing is ideal for people who love thin and crispy cookies. You can also make the cookie balls with the melted butter dough and then chill them before baking. This will produce a cookie that's crispy on the edges, but soft and chewy in the middle. So really, the type of butter you should opt for typically depends on the intended texture of your cookies.

The butter form you choose to add into your dough may also boil down to the type of cookie you are hoping to make. According to Marissa Stevens, melted butter works especially well in recipes where there are chunky mix-ins, like chocolate chunks or oats. "The looser dough helps distribute them more evenly, and the cookies spread out nicely," the expert explained. For instance, melted butter will be ideal for bendy cookies with a gooey center, like soft chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, or snickerdoodles.

On the other hand, softened butter will be better to use when you're looking to produce thicker cookies. "For slice-and-bake cookies, or anything with a more delicate shape (like my Butter Cookies), I always use room temperature butter," Stevens told Food Republic. "It helps the dough hold its form." Additionally, you can also adjust the type of butter a recipe calls for to get a more personalized result. For example, if you have a recipe for extra dense, caky cookies, but you're looking for a thin and chewy result, consider swapping out the room temperature butter for melted (and vice versa).