I’m a self-confessed cookie addict and simply couldn’t get through the day without my daily fix. But while I enjoy consuming them, I’m not a huge fan of baking them. Granted, they’re not difficult to make, it’s just the texture and ideal crunch never turns out right. No matter how many times I’ve adjusted my oven temperature or timings, they never seem to match that perfect crunch of my favorite, store-bought cookies.
The best air fryers are known to cook most things pretty well, from fried food and vegetables to cakes. This is down to how they rapidly heat up and circulate hot air evenly around foods to create that perfect crisp. After owning my air fryer for a month, and making some of the best air fryer recipes, I was impressed at how versatile the humble yet mighty air fryer was.
So I was keen to know if it could make my favorite cookies, and more importantly, would they have that store-bought crunch? I put it to the test to find out. Here’s what happened.
Want to get more out of your air fryer? Check out 7 ways to make an air fryer last longer.
Bake-off time
As previously mentioned, cookies are one of the easiest things to bake, so prep time is around five minutes. Armed with my ingredients of flour, brown sugar, salt, egg yolk and of course, chocolate chips, I set to work at whipping up a storm.
I’d found a simple, air fryer chocolate chip cookie recipe online to follow, and it stated that cooking time would be 5 minutes.
I’d found a simple, air fryer chocolate chip cookie recipe online to follow, and it stated that cooking time would be 5 minutes. Compared to the 12-15 minutes in my gas oven, I was a little skeptical, but willing to give it a try.
After lining my air fryer basket with a tin foil bowl (you can also use foil), I preheated the air fryer to 350-degrees F. One rule of thumb is to always preheat an air fryer before use, but if you’re new to the world of air frying, check out how to use an air fryer for more tips. Once preheated, I scooped the cookie dough mixture by spoonfuls and placed the small balls onto the foil bowl, leaving two inches between each ball.
Halfway through, it was clear that they would need more than five minutes to cook properly, as the dough was still too soft and hadn't browned. So I flipped them over and cooked for an extra five minutes, hoping that would do the trick.
Verdict
Once baking had finished, I cautiously opened the drawer and was pleasantly surprised at the end results. The air fryer had baked the cookies well, and they had an evenly-brown appearance. Admittedly, they didn’t look as appealing as my shop-bought cookies, but the proof was in the taste-test. After one bite, I was impressed by the soft yet crunchy texture of the cookies. It wasn’t too hard either, which can often be the case with oven bakes.
More importantly, they were delicious and tasted even better than my oven-baked versions. What’s more, they baked so much quicker than in my oven, in just 10 minutes. To be fair, though, you can make a lot more cookies in one go in the oven than you can in an air fryer, so this is best for small batches.
Luckily, the clean-up was easy as I had the foil tray to collect any messy, cookie dough bits. But if you use one on a regular basis, you’ll probably need to know how to clean an air fryer so it stays in tip-top condition.
I’ll certainly be using my air fryer to bake cookies from now on rather than my oven. And while they may not win any prizes for the best-looking cookies, they do rank high for taste and perfect crunch (if I do say so myself!). In any case, if you enjoy baking cookies, give it a try - you might never use your oven again.
