Rose Levy Beranbaum is known for writing Bibles. She’s written her Cake Bible and Baking Bible and Pie and Pastry Bible (along with several other best-selling cookbooks). And now she feels like it’s time to eat some cookies. I mean, bake some cookies.
But that’s the thing about cookies, isn’t it? They so edible. Even if you’re full after a marvelous meal, you can still find room for a cookie. Everyone loves them, from young kids to old, because when you have a really good cookie, you feel like a kid again, no matter your age. Beranbaum understands that, and she has written this cookbook for the kids in all of us.
Beranbaum brings her expertise and attention to detail to her new Cookie Bible, where she shares all the cookie recipes she’s been collecting for decades, as well as some new inspirations, with bakers and readers ready to master tasty, beautiful cookies that are filled with surprises, textures, flavors, and techniques from around the world. Almost every recipe comes with her inspiration for the recipe, with her liberally giving credit to the other cookie bakers who have shared their recipes for her to experiment with. And the beautiful photos throughout will whet your appetite to bake and to eat.
Written for beginners as well as experienced bakers, The Cookie Bible is packed with recipes for cookies that are Rolled by Hand, Dropped or Piped, Shaped by Hand, or Rolled and Cut as well as chapters on Holiday Cookies, Bar and Cake Cookies, and Meringues and Candies, and even one chapter on extras like homemade Dulce de Leche, Wicked Good Ganache, Candied Orange or Lemon Peel, Milk Chocolate Mousse Ganache, Lemon Curd, and Raspberry Jam.
Each recipe is packed with helpful information, spelled out, so bakers can follow her path to cookie success. For example, her My Dream Chocolate Chip Cookies, starts out with the basics of oven temperature, baking times, and special equipment as well as the ingredients for the dough and the Mise en Place (a French cooking term that means getting what you need together and prepped). For this recipe, the Mise en Place includes browning the butter and toasting and chopping the walnuts. Then there are the step-by-step instructions to Make the Dough, Shape the Dough, Bake the Cookies, and Cool the Cookies. Then there are several Baking Gems, some of Beranbaum’s tips to bring the best flavor to the cookies. These gems are about the kind of chocolate and butter to use, how to use the oven to get the level of crispiness you want, and how to freeze the dough to bake later. And then she offers variation ideas for different chocolates or nuts. She even has two different recipe variations for this cookie, for a Thin, Crisp, and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie and for a Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookie.
Those same types of instructions and ideas are included throughout The Cookie Bible, whether it’s for a classic like her Fudgy Pudgy Brownies, Gingerbread Folks, Florentines. or Scottish Shortbread Wedges, or if it’s for her Candied Pineapple Biscotti, Lemon Jammies, Bourbon Balls, Churro Nuggets, Lemon Cranberry Squares, Tahini Crisps, or Pumpkin Pecan Cookies, just to name a few of the dozens of recipes included in this cookie compendium.
I am a big fan of cookies, as they were the first think I learned to bake, and they are what I still turn to as my favorite easy comfort bake. I was so excited to see that one of my pastry heroes had turned her attention to cookies, and I know I will refer to this book over and over in my baking years to come. This will be one of those cookbooks where I buy the Kindle version as well as the hardcover, because as I find my favorite recipes in the hardcover, I will inevitably end up spilling things on those pages and possibly gluing the pages together (I’m guessing . . . based on previous experiences with my favorite baking cookbooks. But you should do what’s right for you.) Keep in mind, though, that this would be a perfect gift for bakers watching competition shows and wanting to know how to get started in baking. It would be an even better early holiday gift, so bakers can start making cookies for all those end-of-the-year holiday parties and exchanges that require lots of delicious cookies.
Egalleys for The Cookie Bible were provided by Mariner Books through NetGalley, with many thanks.
