Drop cookies

Drop cookies are the simplest cookie type: a scoop or spoon places portions of soft dough directly onto a prepared cookie sheet. No rolling or cutting is needed.

This dough usually welcomes additions, and chocolate chips, nuts and candies are common. Extension cookie recipes call for dropping the dough by teaspoonfuls onto the sheet, sometimes ungreased and sometimes greased, and spacing the pieces about 2 inches apart. When the cookies come out, they are moved to wire racks to cool.

Because the dough is soft, it can spread. Colorado State Extension notes that high sugar and fat can make cookies sprawl on the sheet, and that chilling the dough, lining the sheet with parchment, or using a room-temperature sheet may help reduce spread.

Baking texts list dropped dough alongside piped, rolled, molded, icebox and bar cookies as a standard way to shape cookie dough.