Page 16 - Classic Cookies with Modern Twists

INTRODUCTION

The simple act of making cookies has inspired a lifelong love of

food and baking in many young cooks, myself included. Who of
us hasn’t pulled a chair up to the kitchen counter to cream
butter and sugar alongside a parent, sibling, babysitter, or
grandparent? Ea sy to master, tough to botch, a batch of cookies
offers near-immediate gratication; it’s possible to decide to

bake cookies and pull a pan from the oven in under an hour. In
between there’s the fun of making (and eating) the dough and
licking beaters and ngers. Once they’re out of the oven, cookies

don’t have to cool, like a cake or pie. In fact, they’re best warm,
with a glass of cold milk, so you can dive right in.
Ev en if you’re not a baker of other desserts, you probably make
cookies. Baking cookies is a way to connect, to make peace, to ll
your kitchen with aromas that inspire acts of goodwill and close

real est ate deals. Baking cookies and sharing them are similarly
powerful acts; neither is likely to make you a better person, but
you’ll feel like one. Cookies are love.

But cookie baking isn’t effortless unless your formulas are
foolproof. And why expend the effort if your cookies aren’t
irresistible and habit-forming? I’ve baked cookies my entire life,
more than a decade of which I worked in professional kitchens
as a pastr y chef. I don’t know how many hundreds of thousands

of cookies I’ve made, but you can be sure that I’ve tried and
tweaked countless recipes along the way. I’ve had more chances
than most to land on the ver y best gingersnap. And the perfect

chocolate chip cookie (there are two, actually).
For many bakers, generations of family bestow a rich source of
winning, original formulas. There’s a long histor y of baking on
both sides of my family: my maternal great-grandmother was a