Category Archives: Favorite Cookie Recipes

Toasted Sesame-Chocolate Chip-Cashew Cookies

A wonderful mix of ingredients creates a powerhouse of nuttiness in these cookies.
A wonderful mix of ingredients creates a powerhouse of nuttiness in these cookies.

Are you making a list and counting it twice…

To figure out which cookie you should make and eat next?

Then, prepare to add this one to it.

“Toasted Sesame-Chocolate Chip-Cashew Cookies” is an unexpected mix of so many good things you love that you wonder why nobody thought to put them all together before.

It’s from the new “Betty Crocker Cookies: Irresistibly Easy Recipes for Any Occasion” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), of which I received a review copy.

It comprises more than 150 cookie recipes. There are short-cut ones such as “Santa Heart-Shaped Cookies” that make use of Betty Crocker cookie mix. But if you’re more inclined to make your cookies entirely from scratch, there are plenty of those types of recipes, too, including boozy “Bourbon Old-Fashioned Cups” (that includes bourbon and Angostura bitters), “Sparkling Orange Ricotta Sandwich Cookies” that makes use of orange juice, orange zest and candied orange slices, and “Chocolate Coconut Cookie Tots” (that require no baking at all).

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When Are Cookies Like Brownies? When They Are Clinton Street Brookies

Is it a brownie or a cookie? It's a cookie that tastes like a brownie.
Is it a brownie or a cookie? It’s a cookie that tastes like a brownie.

You know that delightful crackly, papery layer that forms and separates from the top of brownies when you bake them, adding a fabulous textural contrast to the cakey or chewy foundation below?

That’s exactly what you get in cookie form with these “Clinton Street Brookies.”

They bake up fairly flat and modest in size. So you’re taken aback at the unexpected colossal chocolate taste they provide that’s as deep, dark and potently rich as your favorite dark chocolate brownie.

The recipe for these stunners is from “Rose’s Baking Basics: 100 Essential Recipes, with More Than 600 Step-by-Step Photos” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018), of which I received a review copy.

The book is by baking doyenne Rose Levy Beranbaum, veteran of more than 10 cookbooks and creator of the blog, Real Baking with Rose.

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Caramel Popcorn Cookies

Start with homemade caramel popcorn.
Start with homemade caramel popcorn.

Sure, you could make this addictive caramel popcorn and just call it a day.

But come on, it’s the holidays. It’s time to take it up a notch, to revel in being over the top, to go big or go home.

So go one better, and turn that snack into “Caramel Popcorn Cookies.”

Oh, yeahhh. Instead of stirring in the usual chocolate chips or dried cranberries into your cookie dough, throw in a big flourish of caramel popcorn instead.

It’s like two treats in one.

And end up with Caramel Popcorn Cookies!
And end up with Caramel Popcorn Cookies!

This novel recipe comes from the new cookbook, “Pastry Love: A Baker’s Journal of Favorite Recipes” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), of which I received a review copy.

It’s by one of my all-time favorite bakers, James Beard Award-winning Joanne Chang, of Flour Bakery, with multiple locations in Boston and Cambridge, and the Chinese restaurant Myers + Chang in Boston.

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Caramelized White Chocolate and Toasted Milk Cookies with A Touch of Cardamom

The surprising sweet warmth of cardamom infuses these white chocolate cookies.
The surprising sweet warmth of cardamom infuses these white chocolate cookies.

My appetite always perks up whenever I spot a recipe with cardamom. Especially if it involves baked goods.

The fragrant spice with a warm, sweet, resiny character adds such a beguiling presence to anything it touches.

So when I received a review copy of the new cookbook, “Milk & Cardamom: Spectacular Cakes, Custards and More, Inspired by the Flavors of India” (Page Street), how could I resist?

The new cookbook is by San Franciscan Hetal Vasavada, creator of the namesake Milk & Cardamom blog. You may also recognize her from her stint as a contestant on “MasterChef” Season 6.

A first-generation Indian-American, Vasavada melds American-style desserts with cherished Indian flavors reminiscent of the childhood sweets she grew up loving.

The result is clever recipes such as “Ginger-Chai Chocolate Pot de Creme,” “Peanut Laddoo Buckeye Balls,” “Green Mango Marmalade,” and “Cinnamon and Jaggery Monkey Bread.”

Her “Caramelized White Chocolate and Toasted Milk Cookies” is a play on Jacques Torres’ fabled chocolate chip cookies — only with cardamom and the unusual mix of melted white chocolate and milk powder.

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Making Manresa Bread’s Terrific Tahini Cookies

Nutty, elegant tahini cookies.

Nutty, elegant tahini cookies.

 

Nothing beats the high of discovering a favorite new treat at a bakery or restaurant.

And nothing stings like the blow of finding out the establishment has decided to take it off the menu.

We’ve all been there, right?

When Food Gal reader Kristy W. discovered that her favorite tahini cookies had been yanked from the bakery case at the new Manresa Bread in Campbell, she was beside herself.

So what did she do? She asked yours truly if I could somehow get the recipe.

Well, Kristy, your wish is my command.

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