To keep cookies from turning out flat and crispy, it helps to refrigerate cookie dough for an hour before baking. However, an ice bath can do the job even faster.

Once your dough is ready, put it in a zip-top plastic bag and press to flatten. Then, build an ice bath with ice cubes and cold water in a large, flat-bottomed bowl or baking dish.

Place the dough-filled zip-top bag in the vessel to chill for about 15 minutes. From there, you can cut the bag to remove the dough, portion out your cookies, bake, and enjoy.

Since the fats will be cooler in the chilled dough, it will expand more slowly than room temperature or warm dough when baked and won’t spread out on the baking sheet.

This will yield soft, chewy cookies instead of large, paper-thin ones. The cookies will also have a richer flavor, as the cooling process will help the ingredients meld together.

An ice bath works more effectively than the fridge, as it takes quite a bit of energy for water to raise its own temperature, and it absorbs heat faster than the air in the fridge.