In praise of a cookie cookbook writer's genius
You can almost hear the thunder clap on Thanksgiving Day as this holiday season starts. Most of us finish our T-Day dinner and begin what feels like a triathlon of seasonal events. Yikes.
For the past 24 years, I've shared all sorts of Thanksgiving ideas with you from how to brine a turkey breast for moist and tender results, to what to do with T-Day dinner leftovers (turkey tetrazzini was a favorite).
One year I shared my recipe for making a delicious, easy-to-make sugar-free (natural sugar substitute, nothing artificial for the leanwizard) cranberry sauce from scratch.
This year, because Thanksgiving Day cooking information abounds I thought I'd take a slightly different path: cookies.
If you already know who Dorie Greenspan is then you know, she may be your best-ever baking information source. Greenspan lives in a rare atmosphere since she's won James Beard Awards (three times) and 2010 International Association of Culinary Professional Cookbook of the Year award.
Greenspan knows all about all cookies on all levels. She owned the highly acclaimed New York City Beurre & Sel (Butter & Salt) cookie shop in 2012 and 2013. And, if that's not enough bona fide, Greenspan also wrote "Baking with Julia" (yes, that Julia).
A few weeks ago Houghton Mifflin released Greenspan's newest book: "Dorie's Cookies." My suggestion: do not go hungry to a bookstore to look through Greenspan's book or you'll end up buying it and picking up a few not-as-good-as-Dorie's cookies at the nearest coffee shop on the way home.
Is Greenspan's book worth the $35 price tag? Definitely.
Her book weighs in at over four pounds and more than 500 pages; 99-percent devoted to cookies. There are just 170 cookie recipes in those 500 pages.
That means that every detail for each cookie she shares is well-covered and there's a full-page, full-color picture of every single cookie. There's no way you should go wrong.
Each of Greenspan's cookie recipes has more information in the ingredient list than many of us would normally expect. For example for the butter in her Chocolate-Pecan Pie Cookie Bars, she specifies: "1 stick plus 1 tablespoon (9 tablespoons; 4½ ounces; 128 grams) very cold, unsalted butter, cut into small pieces." That may seem too detailed; being that unambiguous will take cookie maker's frustrations to nearly zero.
As I read through each of Greenspan's recipes I frequently felt as if she was right by my side answering unasked questions like in her Chocolate-Cornflake Haystack recipe: "You can scoop the haystacks with a medium cookie scoop or with a tablespoon. Either way, as you portion out the mixture, try to press it a little so that it kind of, sort of, stays together." Greenspan shares her lifetime of experience in every one of her cookie recipes.
You probably won't make every one of Greenspan's cookies; deciding on what to make will be a difficult task indeed because you'll find a "haystack" of amazing cookies in Greenspan's collection.
Here's just a sample: Salted Chocolate-Caramel Bars; Peanut Butter and Fudge Brownies; Pecan-Butterscotch Shortbreads; Meringue Snowballs; Lavender-White Chocolate Sables (from Beurre & Sal); Sesame Sea Salt Cocktail Cookies and Princeton Gingersnaps.
You'll also learn how to make what Greenspan calls "Go-Alongs," like strawberry compote, marshmallows and chocolate ice cream. There's even a T-Day dessert cookie called: Thanksgiving Bars (chocolate, cranberries and raspberries).
What more to say? Nothing. Dorie's done it again.
Here's Greenspan's recipe for a remarkable brownie and that's no hyperbole.
• Don Mauer welcomes questions, comments and recipe makeover requests. Write to him at don@ theleanwizard.com.