The holiday season is the time for baking: cakes, pies, and most certainly cookies. It is THE cookie season. Suzi and I have a few cookie books. About two hundred actually. You’d think we would stop. The dialog goes something like this.
“Suzi, look at this cookie recipe?” I begin.
“Is that a new cookie book? I thought we agreed …”
“Is has pistachios.”
“Okay.”
It’s that easy. I mention nuts or dates or chocolate and she’s all in. We keep the books on shelves in our New York City office and front room. And then there is the upstate house with our office, front room and basement. The cookie books are everywhere. Think of them as “blue blankets.”
That upstate kitchen though has the Holy bookshelf, the location of the “must have” cookbooks. And there you can always find The Good Cookie from Tish Boyle in 2002.
Author of ten dessert books and editor of Dessert Professional Magazine, Tish is a professional writer, editor, recipe developer, and cookie lover. We have the hardcopy edition of the book but a paperback version was published in 2011. I can only hope that Tish is setting aside time for a new, expanded version.
Not that The Good Cookie lacks anything. In its 250 recipes, there is surely a cookie out there destined to become your favorite. Or favorites.
The Soft-Baked Chocolate Chunk Cookie has been blogged here before. It is simply the best chocolate chip cookie recipe. That’s if you hate those thin, crisp clunkers the snap apart in your mouth. Do you want your cookies thick, soft, chewy and filled with chocolate? This is the cookie for you.
At the bottom of this post is the Amy-Oe, cocoa-based wafer that is wonderful by itself. Just a bomb of cocoa bursting in your mouth. But Tish always tends to go an extra step. So these wafers are transformed into sandwich cookies by using Kahlua Buttercream. This buttercream is just so good you want to stick your tongue right in the bowl.
Never thought of doing that? You will.
Here are some other recipe ideas from The Good Cookie, a complete baker’s dozen:
Brandied Eggnog Cookies
Brooklyn Heights Brownies with Chocolate Glaze
Caramel Almond Square
Caramel Coconut Pecan Brownies
Chocolate Espresso Sandwich Cookies
Chocolate Espresso Shortbread
Chocolate Walnut Bars
Citrus Sandwiches
Fig Pillows
Lime Cornmeal Shortbread
Milk Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies
Orange Cream Bars
Raspberry Almond Shortbread Squares
Yes, Tish has a few cravings in her life. She is apparently addicted to the 3 C’s: chocolate, caramel, citrus. Turn a page or two, and one of those flavors will happily appear.
There are nine chapters for the recipes offering you ideas by style:
- Drop Cookies
- Rolled Cookies
- Bar Cookies
- Hand-Formed Cookies
- Piped and Molded Cookies
- Refrigerator Cookies
- Filled and Sandwich Cookies
- Decorator Cookies [holiday ideas]
- Savory Cookies and Cracker
If you need an immediate cookie fix, then the chapters for Drop or Bar will have you nibbling in an hour or less. If you are patient, which I understand is hard, then the Refrigerator or the Filled and Sandwich chapters offer you big payback for your delayed satisfaction.
In our rather large cookie cookbook collection, The Good Cookie is the first book we reach for. Pretty often, we don’t have to reach for another. The Good Cookie is that good.
Oh, those Amy-Oes with the Kahlua Buttercream. I’ll post it very soon.
