Image courtesy of Dough Dough
 
Consuming raw cookie dough has long been a guilty pleasure for many, and cookie dough bakeries have figured out how to make it safe to eat. Business is booming.

Slightly chilled, raw cookie dough is ready to serve in many different forms such as cups, cones, and sandwiches. The product can be customized with gourmet flavors like salted caramel, peanut butter, birthday cake, Nutella, and much more.

Award-winning baker and pastry chef Christina Tosi, who proclaims a love for eating cookie dough, shares a cookie dough cookie recipe in which she scoops cookie dough balls on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet and bakes for 3-5 minutes until the edges are golden brown but raw in the middle. Then you simply store in the freezer immediately and serve directly from the cooler.

“Because it is a lot of people’s obsession and it’s been a secret obsession for a long time,” says Kristen Tomlan, founder of D? Cookie Dough Confections in New York City. She has been selling 1,500 pounds of cookie dough a day at her Greenwich Village storefront and hopes to expand both in New York and online.

“For products that typically contain eggs, we use a pasteurized egg product, which means there is no chance of salmonella,” she adds. “We use a heat-treated, ready-to-eat flour. That means no chance of foodborne illness or the risk that comes along with eating raw flour products.”

The rise of cookie dough bakeries coincides with other specialty sweet shops. Whether it is cupcakes, pies or cookies, customers appreciate a business that focuses on innovative sweet treats.

Image courtesy of 2 Dough Boyz
 
According to industry analyst Technomic’s MenuMonitor, cookie dough is seeing a 9 percent year-over-year growth, as foodservice operations of all kinds are looking to ride the wave of its popularity. As more of these cookie dough establishments succeed, competitors will likely follow.

The Mall of America, will soon offer the popular treat, as Dough Dough food truck, which hit the streets of Minneapolis in May 2017, has announced that it will be opening a brick-and-mortar location inside Mall of America later this year. Promising to offer “cookies by the spoonful,” Dough Dough is currently under construction and will be ready for customers sometime in the fall.

A new food cart operating in New York City’s Gansevoort Market is looking to make a lot of dough with its cookie dough concept. 2 Dough Boyz, co-founded by former Universal Records executive Matt Maroone, pays tribute to 1990s hip-hop music by selling flavors with names that reference the important era for the genre. The theme was inspired by Marrone’s involvement in the music industry.

The four current hip-hop-themed flavors are Chocolate Chip Hop Hooray, Confetti to Die (sugar cookie dough with white chocolate chips and rainbow sprinkles), The World is S’mores (chocolate chip cookie dough with crushed graham crackers and toasted marshmallows), and Nuttin Butter G Thang (chocolate chip cookie dough with M&Ms and whole Reese’s peanut butter cups).

The bakery serves its flavors in three sizes: Lil’ Wayne ($6), Fat Joe ($9), and Big Pun ($12), opening from noon to 10 p.m. daily. 2 Dough Boyz continues the theme by hiring local rappers. “Everybody that we hire has to have some kind of musical connection. So far, we’re trying to hire rappers only. One of our dudes, he just graduated from St. John’s,” says Maroone.