Author Sarah Kieffer knows a thing or two about cookies. She’s made thousands of them since she was a teenager. She used baking as a way to cope with junior high and high school, and after falling away from the kitchen in college, she got a job at a small coffee shop as a barista and ended up filling up their pastry displays. And after many years of baking, creating recipes, testing recipes, and sharing baked treats, she is giving us all her best insights for baking delicious cookies.
After getting us set up for success by talking us through the equipment we’ll need, she talks the ingredients, going so far as to tell us major brands she used for recipe testing (and they’re not expensive, hard-to-find brands—she used Gold Medal and C&H and Land O’Lakes). After some tips about measurements and making sure your oven temperature is consistent and things like tempering chocolate, then Kieffer pulls the curtains back and gets to the recipes.
First, the classics, starting with the obvious: Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies. Because what cookie is more iconic than that? But if a soft cookie isn’t your thing, she offers several variations for you to try instead. And then it’s on to other classic cookies, like Peanut Butter Cookies, Sugar Cookies, (my personal favorite cookie, that you can see right on that cover) Chocolate Crinkle Cookies, Snickerdoodles, Ginger Cookies, and Shortbread.
Then it’s to Brownies and Blondies, where she again offers several variations of a classic brownie—My Favorite Brownies, Fudgy Brownies, Cakey Brownies—before moving on to Cream Cheese Brownies, Turtle Brownies, Rocky Road Brownies, and even Marshmallow Peanut Butter Brownies. There are also several takes on White Chocolate Brownies and Blondies (Cinnamon Roll Blondies? Come on! I have to try those!)
And since that’s not enough, there is a chapter for the Fruitextravaganza, with Lemon Sugar Cookies, Orange Almond Shortbread Cookies, Raspberry Rye, Banana Cream Pie Bars, Danish Pear-Apple Bars, Mixed Berry Crumble Bars, and Red Wine Cherry Cheesecake Swirl Bars, just to name a few. And then there’s a chapter called The Next Level, as if these recipes weren’t already next level. There are Smoky Butterscotch, French Meringues, Double Chocolate Espresso Cookies, Chocolate Hazelnut Bars, French Silk Pie Bars, Creme Brulee Cheesecake Bars, and Carrot Cake Bars with Meringue. Then it’s Time to Play, with Macarons, Neapolitan Cookies, Kitchen Sink Cookies, Chocolate-Peanut Butter Pretzel Bark, and Caramelized White Chocolate Pistachio Bark.
And then you find out Kieffer was just getting warmed up. In her chapter Pan-Banging Cookies, she shares her unique technique of tapping the pan several times during baking, which creates a cookie with ripples at the outside. That creates a crisp outer edge and a chewy center, together in one cookie. And then she gives her recipes for her pan-banging classic Chocolate Chip Cookies, Oatmeal Chocolate Cookies, Rum Raisin Cookies, Rocky Road Cookies, Toasted Sesame Cookies, Peanut Butter Cookies, Ginger Molasses Cookies, Snickerdoodles, and others.
Finally, she’s all about the Mix and Match, like her Peanut Butter Cookies with Peanut Butter Filling, Ginger Cookies with Salted Caramel Ice Cream, Oatmeal Cream Pies, Brownies with Coffee Ice Cream, and Chocolate Malt Ice Box Bars, for example. And finally, she offers up basic recipes that you’ll need to put all these together (think of this chapter as a masterclass of baking techniques): Rough Puff Pastry, Pastry Cream, Lemon Curd, Caramel, Marshmallows, No-Churn Ice Cream, Whipped Cream, Candied Nuts, and Caramel Shards, just to name a few.
100 Cookies is the cookie cookbook we need right now, with lots of gorgeous photos, classic recipes, new techniques, and even a list of music to bake by. Cookies are such a basic form of comfort food. They’re portable, freezable, and so very giftable. But mostly, they just remind us of childhood, of home, of family, and of all that’s good in the world. And that is something we desperately need these days.
Egalleys for 100 Cookies were provided by Chronicle Books through Edelweiss, with many thanks.
