Cookie

Megan and I absolutely love Snickerdoodles, but neither of us likes to roll them into balls. So, one of us will mix the dough, and then we begin “let’s make a deal” with our parents. Offering to do chores seems to be our most effective bargaining chip to trade for rolling: we have washed dishes, cooked dinner, cleaned the litter box, and when it’s a double batch, even cleaned our rooms.

Toffee Bars were the first things I learned to bake. These are my standard fare for those, “Oh man, I forgot I was supposed to bring cookies” times. They’re super easy and quick to make. Ten minutes to prep, twenty minutes to cook, done.

I like to make these cookies small, using a scoop so they are all the same size, whereas Jill uses a spoon and makes them huge and all different sizes. Either way, they are one of our favorite cookies. They are great the way they are, but sometimes I like to add butterscotch chips for something different.

These edible cups are easiest to bake on baking sheets lined with parchment paper, rather than thick silicone baking mats, since they’re whisper thin and somewhat fragile. Overturned teacups make the perfect molds, although you can use anything that’s relatively wide with a flat bottom, such as a custard cup. After baking, if any cookies cool before you’ve had a chance to mold them into cookie cups, simply pop the baking sheet back in the oven for about 30 seconds to make them supple and try again.

The unexpected crunch of poppy seeds in these very pretty, delicate cookie cups is the perfect foil for any homemade ice cream or a fruity sorbet.

This recipe makes jumbo-sized, chewy oatmeal cookies, ideal for sandwiching ice cream. They stay nice and moist after they’re frozen and are especially good (in my humble opinion) filled with Plum Ice Cream (page 77). Let them cool completely before trying to lift them off the baking sheet. They’ll be somewhat soft, since they’re designed to be retain their tenderness even after they’re frozen. Since these cookies are larger than normal, I find that I can get 6 onto a standard baking sheet (11 by 17 inches, or 28 by 43 cm), so that even when they spread, they don’t touch. If you have several baking sheets, this is a great time to put them into service. If not, let your baking sheet cool completely before baking the next batch of cookies.

These resemble the classic ice cream sandwich cookies but taste much better, and are far fudgier, than those soggy dark rectangles you’ll soon forget about.

These oversized cookies are packed with nuts and chocolate chips, perfect for making the best ice cream sandwiches you’ve ever had, feel free to use as much ice cream as you like inside.

When I was looking for the perfect blondie, I went to the source on all things chocolate chipified: my good friend and fellow baker Dede Wilson, author of A Baker’s Field Guide to Chocolate Chip Cookies. I knew she’d come through with a killer recipe, and boy, did she ever.

These are the best brownies for crumbling into ice cream, since they’ll stay nice and chewy even after they’re frozen.

If you like your brownies airy and not too dense, these are the ones for you.

These cookie chunks are inspired by the famous spiced cookies from Belgium, which are zippier than American gingersnaps. Soft-baked Speculoos meld wonderfully when folded into ice cream, but if you’d like to make them crunchier, break the cookies into little bite-sized nuggets and toast them in a low oven (325°F, 165°C) for about 10 minutes, until dry and crispy. Cool completely, then fold the crunchy bits into your ice cream.

These cookies are like supersized biscotti, but, unlike biscotti, they’ve never gained wide acceptance outside their native Italy, probably because their name is a bit more of a challenge to pronounce. Thankfully, they’re just as easy to make, and every bit as good.

I love chocolate. But sometimes I want something that’s packed with intense chocolate flavor yet not outrageously rich. These biscotti certainly fit the bill. Italians often add a dash of black pepper to desserts and give them the designation pepato. I share their affection for a hit of peppery flavor in desserts, but feel free to omit the pepper if you’d like.

These barely sweet crisp little cookies are the definitive Italian nibble. Not only do I serve them as perfect bites alongside a ristretto (a “tight” espresso), but I also crumble them up and use the bitter almond-scented crumbs in desserts. They make a perfect topping for Lemon Semifreddo (page 65) and give a decidedly Italian touch to Peach-Amaretti Crisp (page 102). True amaretti are made with sweet apricot kernels rather than almonds, but since apricot kernels can be difficult to find and not everyone’s keen on eating them (they contain cyanide), I call for almonds in this recipe.

This recipe is much easier to make than conventional tuiles because the batter isn’t as fussy and it doesn’t need to be painstakingly spread out on a baking sheet with a spatula. The heat of the oven takes care of the spreading, making sure that the cookies expand to the right dimensions as they bake. No, unfortunately, the oven can’t mix up the batter for you, but maybe in a few years kitchen technology will make that an option. The cookies can be coaxed into an endless variety of shapes warm out of the oven—they can be curled over a rolling pin for traditional tuiles, wrapped around the handle of a wooden spoon into cigar-like tubes, or molded over the bottom of an overturned teacup into nifty cookie cups for holding ice cream. You’ll have to do that part yourself, too, but then again, why let your oven have all the fun?

These lacy cookies have an exotic appeal thanks to the tiny sesame seeds inlaid in the surface, as well as the spoonful of sesame oil in the batter that adds a toasty sesame scent. Black sesame seeds make the tuiles especially striking. They’re great paired with tropical fruit desserts such as Passion Fruit–Tangerine Sorbet (page 159) or Tropical Fruit Soup with Coconut Sherbet and Meringue (page 112). Like the Pecan-Butterscotch Tuiles (page 214), they can be shaped into tubes or cookie cups.

It was as if someone hit the switch one day and all of a sudden, a flash of electric-green took Paris by storm. You couldn’t walk past a pâtisserie without seeing something sweet and shockingly green standing out among the more traditional-looking pastries in the lavish window displays. Although the deluge of green tea desserts spread far and wide throughout the city, the best can be found at the shop of Sadaharu Aoki, a Japanese pâtissier who wows normally blasé Parisians with his classic French desserts made with a twist. He incorporates ingredients like black sesame seeds and sweet red beans into his pastries, creating a marriage of flavors that would’ve stunned Escoffier. I came up with my own recipe for these flavor-packed almond teacakes flecked with a bit of salt and sesame seeds because I was certain that the staff at his shop was tired of wiping my nose prints off the windows.

This recipe is the result of a 12-year obsession. I first fell for these wispy cookies when I bought a startlingly pricey pack of them at an upscale gourmet store in America. When I moved to France, I was surprised how common these crackly cookies are. I was so excited—they were everywhere! Have I mentioned that I’m obsessive? It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that I just had to come up with a recipe for the cookies myself. I checked the ingredients list on as many packages as I could get my hands on, and they certainly seemed simple enough. What followed was years of duds as I searched for ways to combine the mere handful of ingredients into the lightly caramelized croquants of my dreams. Then, suddenly, one day, after a lot of trial and just as much error, I got it right. I wasn’t the only one pleased with the results: I left a sack for the highly opinionated French woman who cleans my apartment, and arrived home later to find a little note that read “EXTRA DELICIEUX. Merci, David!”

When I think of cookie cultures, Mexico doesn’t immediately spring to mind. However, there are Mexican wedding cookies, or polvorones, the nation’s answer to Scottish shortbread. Their delicate texture and mild sweetness make them muy simpático next to a bowl of Sangria Sorbet (page 158) or Mexican Chocolate Ice Cream (page 148).