Category Archives: Favorite Cookie Recipes

Holiday Cookies to Bake

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Bring it on -- "Feisty Ginger Cookies.''

Still hunting for the perfect cookie to make all your friends and family members thoroughly worship the ground you walk on and the kitchen you bake in?

Look no further than today’s issue of East Bay Express, where you’ll find my story on holiday cookies.

I sweet-talked three well-known East Bay bakers into parting with their favorite holiday cookie recipes.

Learn how to make “Chocolate Peppermint Pinwheels” from Oakland’s Montclair Baking; “Feisty Ginger Cookies” from Teacake Bake Shop of Emeryville, Lafayette and Corte Madera; and gluten-free ”Viennese Crescents” from Mariposa bakery in Oakland.

For good measure, I also included my own favorite Christmas cookie — “Italian Macaroons.”

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Plain and Simple

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Meet a crispy sesame biscotti named Regina.

Regina is not a glamour puss.

She’s not decked out in the latest and greatest. She’s not trendy in the least. And her sweetness is subtle, almost mysteriously elusive.

Regina is a classic Sicilian cookie, timeless and always welcome at any occasion.

“Biscotti Regina” is from “The Modern Baker” (DK Publishing) by Nick Malgieri, former executive pastry chef of Windows on the World in New York.

It’s a biscotti that is not sliced and baked for a second time. Instead, the dough is rolled into a rope, then cut into cylinders, each of which is dipped into an egg wash, followed by a good dunking into a bowl of white sesame seeds until thoroughly coated.

The biscotti bake just once, and emerge crisp, with a whisper of vanilla and just the merest hint of sweetness. It’s a cookie that’s perfect at the end of a meal with coffee or a sweet dessert wine, or as an afternoon pick-me-up with a relaxing cup of tea.

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Tantalizing Preview: Ad Hoc Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe By Thomas Keller

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Just-baked chocolate chip cookes from the upcoming Ad Hoc cookbook

Confession time.

I have “The French Laundry Cookbook,” the “Bouchon Cookbook,” and the “Under Pressure” sous vide tome, all by Thomas Keller.

These oversized, coffee-table books reside in a prominent place on my bookshelf. I have leafed through them all, savoring the recipes, and lusting after each and every magnificent dish photographed so dreamily.

But I’ve yet to cook from any of them. Maybe I’ve felt unworthy. Maybe I’ve lacked the equipment necessary. And maybe I’ve lacked the time for some of the rather involved dishes that my husband joked he’d have to take days off from work to help me pull off.

That is, until now.

Until a promo brochure for the upcoming “Ad Hoc At Home” (Artisan) book arrived in my mail, and I fairly ran to the kitchen to start pulling measuring spoons and bowls out of my cabinets.

I’ve had the pleasure of eating at Ad Hoc in Yountville a couple of times. I’ve always been won over by the impeccable quality of the seasonal, family-style food served at this casual eatery. It’s comfort food done with utmost fun and finesse.

Salmon tartare cornets I’ll leave to the French Laundry staff to construct. A Bouchon recipe for French onion soup that requires a half day to caramelize onions ever so slowly (I’m exaggerating, but not by much) makes my eyes glaze over. Sous vide anything makes me start to tremble.

But chocolate chip cookies? OK, this I can do.

Making the dough.

Keller acknowledges his other books might be intimidating to most of us. He goes so far as to refer to the new Ad Hoc book as “the long-awaited cookbook for the home chef.” It’s described as uncomplicated, the way Keller cooks at home — without intricate garnishes or an immersion circulator. Though, knowing him, I’m sure he cooks in the world’s most organized, uncluttered home kitchen around, with everything labeled and alphabetized, and every electrical cord neatly wound just so. He can’t help himself.

The book won’t be available until November. But the promo materials give a hint at the very doable, very delectable dishes in store: leek bread pudding, blow-torch prime rib roast, caramelized sea scallops, and pineapple upside-down cake.

Being the cookie fiend that I am, though, it was the recipe included in full for chocolate chip cookies that got me pumped up.

With so many chocolate chip cookie recipes already out there, how could this one be any different?

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Man-Happy Cookies

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You can't resist taking a bite of these chewy cookies.

Whenever I pull out my mixer and measuring cups, my husband will eagerly chirp, “Oooh, what are you baking?”

If I answer “lemon-grapefruit-kumquat coconut bars” or “cardamom-nutmeg-pine nut chewies” or anything else a little exotic, he’ll sigh dejectedly.

“Oh,” he’ll fret. Then add, “How about chocolate-chip or peanut butter instead?”

You see, besides his nickname of Meat Boy, he’s also known in our house as Basic Boy.

Sure, he likes his fancy four-star dinners at swank restaurants. But after awhile, he’s craving the simpler tastes in life. A good burger or — dare I say it — Taco Bell.

Like many men that I know, he’s also a milk chocolate lover. He much prefers that to the dark, earthy, slightly bitter, dark variety I can’t get enough of.

So when I spied this recipe for “Peanut Butter Cookies with Milk Chocolate” in the “Baked” (Stewart, Tabori & Chang) cookbook by Brooklyn bakery owners Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito, I thought I’d give it a try.

Milk chocolate swirled with peanut butter in a cookie.

Unlike other peanut butter chocolate chip cookies I’ve made, this one calls for milk chocolate, coarsely chopped from a bar, rather than milk chocolate chips. So instead of a peanut butter cookie studded with milk chocolate chips you get a cookie that’s a little like a melted Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. As the cookies bake, some of the milk chocolate melts into the peanut butter batter, creating chewy cookies that are swirled throughout with nutty and chocolatey goodness.

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A Profusion of Poppy Seeds

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Lemon Poppy Seed cookies.

So maybe you wouldn’t want to nibble on these cookies right before taking a physical, or more specifically, a drug test.

That’s because there is a profusion of poppy seeds in them. A whopping 1/3 cup to be precise.

And we wouldn’t want anyone to falsely test positive for opiates, would we?

But any other second of the day when you’re not due to see the doc, you’ll want to enjoy these lovely Lemon Poppy Seed Drops. The recipe is from “The Modern Baker” (DK) by baking authority Nick Malgieri, the former executive pastry chef of Windows on the World in New York City.

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