Cookie

This pretty bar cookie is another play on a brownie. Dark brown sugar and a hint of cinnamon are perfect partners for the robust flavor of the chocolate. The top is generously sprinkled with macadamia nuts and has a chocolate webbed finish that's guaranteed to catch your eye.

Here's how Mario Carbone and Rich Torrisi of New York City's Torrisi Italian Specialties make these cake-like Technicolor treats.

Biscotti are the perfect ending to a great meal, especially with an espresso. A scoop of ice cream makes them even more special.—Karen DeMasco

Based on my grandmother's very old recipe, these cookies are a slightly softer version of my granddad Danner's favorite peanut butter cookies. These were his favorite things on earth and my grandmother always made them for him. He passed away when I was seven, but I can still remember him with his thick shock of white hair eating these cookies with a glass of milk.

The recipe for red velvet cake has been around since the 1920s, when the cake was the signature dessert at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. The cake captured my heart-and it plays hard to get. It took me forever to come up with a magical adaptation that would capture the richness of its namesake. These bars get their health benefits, velvety texture, and deep red color from a paste made of beets, red beans, cocoa powder, and red food coloring. I took a slight departure from the traditional red velvet cake flavor by adding a touch of almond extract, and that, my friends, is where the magic happened.

The fresh lemon juice and lemon zest give these crisp and buttery shortbreads a zesty kick.

This crumbly shortbread is studded with dried currants, which are tiny raisins made from Zante grapes. The currants must be soaked overnight, so you'll need to plan your craving a day in advance.

Before I opened Flour, I was lucky to get some local press about my new bakery and café. Just prior to opening day, the Boston Globe interviewed me for a cookie story and featured a bigger-than-life-size photo of my hand holding one of these lacy sesame cookies. They are gorgeous, but the ironic thing was that I didn't intend them as a selling point for Flour. A baking sheet of them just happened to be near me when the photographer asked for a prop. I'd been using the cookies for years in my restaurant work to garnish ice cream and sorbet desserts, and I wasn't planning to make them at Flour, because they seemed too brittle and delicate for the rough-and-tumble world of chocolate chip cookies and oatmeal scones. But when our doors opened, practically every other customer who walked in asked about the scrumptious-looking cookie in the newspaper and wanted to order one. We tried making them for a while, but, as I had suspected, they didn't hold up well stacked with the other cookies on our counter. Ever so slowly, we phased them out and customers eventually forgot about them. But they are fantastic for making at home! This is a wonderfully easy recipe made with ingredients that you probably already have in the kitchen, except for the black sesame seeds. Seek them out—you can find them in most Asian grocery stores and specialty food shops—because they contrast beautifully with the golden brown cookie and add a distinctive flavor. Serve them as I did during my restaurant days, with a bowl of ice cream or sorbet.

This recipe is (very slightly) adapted from the second St. John restaurant cookbook, Beyond Nose to Tail (if you don't already have both the St. John books, buy them now as not only are the recipes brilliant but the turn of phrase is a joy). I would recommend you buy one or two 12-hole madeleine pans for this, if you don't already have one, as once you've made these you'll be sure to make them again. You can serve the first batch while the second batch is in the oven; you'll need both.

These rich treats aren't cookie-jar cookies—they're best the day they're made.

These are some of the best brownies we've ever had—fudgy in the middle and chewy on the outside with a shiny, crackly top. The browned butter adds a rich, nutty flavor.

Crispy, oversize cookies with a hint of butterscotch flavor.

To create patisserie-perfect macaroons, Sandra Holl uses very finely ground almond flour. To remove the larger pieces, sift the flour before using.

This recipe took almost three weeks of trial and error before I perfected it. But the fantastic result was well worth the aggravation! With three kinds of chocolate for flavor—cocoa powder, cacao nibs, and chocolate chips—you won't miss the fat and sugar in the standard version of this most beloved cookie. Pour a glass of (skim) milk and get happy.