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If you have visited my blog before, you will know I am crazy about cookies (if not, welcome to Mom’s Baking Co!) Cookies are one of my most baked sweet treats, closely followed by cheesecake.
I’ve experimented with my fair share of recipe and cookie flavors but if there’s one I think really takes the cake, or rather, the biscuit it is this recipe from Cupcake Jemma. These cookies are seriously on another level of delicious. If you haven’t tried her recipe yet, I highly recommend you give it a try!
Regardless of what your go-to cookie recipe is, the processes and ingredients usually follow a similar pattern. Butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder, chocolate chips… and loads of arm-aching mixing.
I used to do all the hard work with a good old-fashioned wooden spoon and a ceramic mixing bowl, but after I got my trusty stand mixer it was a total game-changer. No more aching arms and perfectly mixed batter, it’s a win-win!
If you are new to the wonderful world of stand mixers, today I want to share with you my favorite KitchenAid attachments for cookies. Some of these are essential to the mixing process, others are just handy extra’s I can’t live without.
KitchenAid Cookie Attachments
Flat Beater
The flat beater, also known as the paddle attachment will do all the heavy lifting when it comes to making cookies in your KitchenAid mixer. It comes with every stand mixer, as does with the wire whip and dough hook. The flat beater is definitely the most versatile of these standard attachments and the one most of us probably use on a daily basis.
This attachment is perfect for making cakes, cupcakes, buttercream frosting and basically anything that doesn’t require the wire whip or kneading dough.
The paddle attachment has 2 to 4 crossbars (depending on the size of your mixer) intersecting through the middle and has a rounded triangular shape to it. This clever design doesn’t just look pretty, it’s specially designed to allow the batter to fold over itself and incorporate all the ingredients evenly.
The trick with making great cookies is to not whip any air into the cookie dough batter. Many cookie recipes will involve creaming the eggs with sugar and softened butter for a couple of minutes. Whipping the cookie dough batter will incorporate too much air and will cause your cookies to collapse in the oven.
My favorite cookie recipe uses cold butter straight from the fridge and the eggs are added at the end, not at the start like most typical cookie recipes. Although this might be a bit counterintuitive, cold butter actually helps the cookies hold their shape in the oven. Also, adding the eggs at the end means you don’t need to whip them in, rather just combine them.
The ideal cookie requires a light mixing, on a low-speed setting, until all ingredients are just combined and you can only get this with your paddle attachment.
The Flex Edge Beater (Optional)
Another great attachment for cookie dough is the flex edge beater. It looks exactly like the flat beater but with one major difference; the flex edge.
The flex edge beater has a silicone flexible material on the side that scrapes the mixture as it rotates around the bowl. One of my pet peeves is having to scrape the sides of the bowl down after my stand mixers has mixed my batter. It kind of defeats the purpose of a stand mixer being hands-free, right?
The flex edge will pick up any residue cookie dough stuck on the side of your bowl and mixes it in with the rest of your ingredients.
Unlike cake batter, cookie dough is a bit easier to scrape from the side of the bowl, so the flex edge is not necessary for making cookies but it’s certainly a great addition to your attachment collection.
Pouring shield
Most stand mixers do not include a pouring shield as a standard accessory, but they are a great KitchenAid attachment to add to your collection and an inexpensive too. In truth, I didn’t realize how important a pouring shield was until I got my hands on one!
The pouring shield lets you add your ingredients to the bowl while the mixer is on, allowing you to add your ingredients through the chute to incorporate evenly. Plus it means you don’t need to stop and start your mixer every few seconds to add your ingredients which can be a bit of a pain.
This attachment also acts as a splash guard, which is absolutely brilliant, especially if you are baking with some messy kiddos! Have you ever had cake batter or buttercream splash on your clothes? I am sure we all have. Even if you start your stand mixer on the slowest setting, batter, and especially flour or icing sugar can go flying around your kitchen making a mess and staining your clothes.
The pouring shield/splash guard attachment will help you add all your cookie ingredients in the bowl without needing to stop the mixer and at the same time protect your clothes and kitchen from cookie dough batter flying around.
Sifter and Scale
The sifter and scale attachment from KitchenAid has got to be one of my favorites. This attachment clips into the universal hub at the top of the stand mixer.
The sifter and scale attachment does exactly what it says. It weighs the dry ingredients and sifts them directly into the bowl. This is a great attachment as you don’t need to go through the process of placing your bowl on scales, sifting the dry ingredients with a sieve and clipping the bowl back into the stand It does all of that in a matter of seconds with no extra effort from you.
Of course, this isn’t a necessary attachment, but it is one that will save a lot of time and reduce the amount of cleaning you will need to do.
KitchenAid Cookie Recipe
With so many cookie recipes out there, it can be hard trying to find the best one for you. Everyone likes their cookies differently. I love a NYC, Levain Bakery style chunky cookie. Others might like a more toffee-like cookie or a flatter cookie.
Ultimately, each cookie type is made with pretty much the same ingredients, what changes is the process and order of the ingredients.
There are two cookie recipes I have tried with my KitchenAid stand mixer. KitchenAid’s own recipe and my favorite NYC cookie recipe. Both show you how to use the KitchenAid and the flat beater to make the most delicious cookies.
What are you waiting for? Get baking!
So, there you have it, my favorite KitchenAid attachment for cookies. In honesty, the only attachment you really need to make cookies is the flat beater. This is a great tool that can be used for so many of your bakes. The other tool that I mentioned are great additions, that will cerintly make your life easier, but are not necessary.
If there is one extra attachment I suggest you should think about adding to your collection, it’s the 2 in 1 pouring shield and splash guard. It is much more useful than you think it is and makes the baking process easier by being able to add the ingredients while the mixer is still on.
Speaking of making things easier… I can’t finish this article without mentioning the sifter and scales one last time. Sifting the dry ingredients is such a messy and time-consuming task. The sifter and scales take all that away from you and weighs and sifts in a fraction of the time than it would take if you did it all manually. If you can stretch your budget a little bit and are like me who loathes having to sift, I highly recommend getting your hands on one.
