Nancy Baggett - Simply sensational cookies: bright fresh flavors, natural colors & easy, streamlined techniques

Copyright 2013 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Photography copyright 2013 by Diane Cu and Todd Porter

Cover Image: Diane Cu and Todd Porter

Cover Design: Suzanne Sunwoo

Interior Design: idesign, inc.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Baggett, Nancy

Simply sensational cookies : bright fresh flavors, natural colors & easy, streamlined techniques / Nancy Baggett ; photography by Diane Cu and Todd Porter.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-0-470-27868-0 (cloth); 978-1-118-11056-0 (ebk); 978-1-118-11057-7-(ebk); 978-1-118-11058-4 (ebk)

1. Cookies. I. Title.

TX772.B29 2013

641.8654--dc23

2011042968

Printed in China

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Acknowledgments

Many people played a part in creating this book. Im proud of it and am very grateful to all those who helped make it happen.

First, a huge thank you to Justin Schwartz, my editor, and the whole Wiley team, for being committed to quality and for making Simply Sensational Cookies the best it could possibly be. A book of this size and with full color and photography throughout is a huge undertaking for a publisher, and I am thrilled with the results. Jackie Beach, senior production editor, Joline Rivera, the books interior designer, and Suzanne Sunwoo, the cover designer, all need to take a bow. Thanks, too, to the publicity staff, especially Claire Holzman, and to editorial assistant Eden Bunchuck for helping with many details.

Im grateful to the enormously talented Diane Cu and Todd Porter, whose spectacular photographs for the book still take my breath away. Not only did they deliver far more than I hoped for, but they were a great pleasure to work with. Thanks, as well, to Nancy Buchanan, who so ably and cheerfully assisted us during the photo shoot.

Thanks to Judith Riven, my literary agent, for her enthusiasm, very professional representation, and steadying presence over a project that spanned more than five years.

Many thanks to my recipe testers: My kitchen assistants Linda Kirschner and Judy Silver Weisberg helped test many of the recipes, and Erica Horting also tested a number of them. Connie Hay, Sally Churgai, and Stephanie Lowell provided help as well.

Another big thank you goes to an enthusiastic group of volunteer testers who made recipes in their own kitchens, then carefully rated them for ease of preparation, taste, texture, and appearance. Their feedback was thoughtful and constructive and helped make the recipes better and more user-friendly. In alphabetical order they are: Steven Blaski, Jilda Bolton, Dixie Broyles, Sallie Buttler, Judy Carter, Susan Colletti, Pam Cote, Kit Ellis, Vicki Gensini, Monica Greaney, Rose Gulledge, Janet Holliday, Kate Marvel, Deb Melnyk, Cindy Nelson, Cindy Pauldine, Deborah Ross, Margo Sety, and Elaine Wallace.

Thank you to the friends and colleagues in my writers group, who have been sampling and rating my recipes and critiquing my prose over literally decades. Their steadfast support and expertise has definitely made me a better writer, and perhaps a better baker and cook. I have also learned a lot from the various food editors and publishers Ive written for over the years and appreciate their confidence in me and their enthusiasm for my work. Additionally, many fine cookbook authors and bakers (some I know well and others Ive never met) have inspired me and shown the way towards excellence. More recently, numerous culinary bloggers and Twitter and Facebook foodie friends have shared knowledge and enthusiastically lent their support.

Finally, thanks to my wonderful family. They are my biggest advocates and enrich my professional and personal life in countless ways. They have been springboards for ideas, guinea pigs for recipes in progress, and honest (but never harsh) critics of my work. My husband, Charlie, who has been cheering me on and providing wise counsel since the very beginning, sometimes tactfully says, Its good enough for me to eat, but not good enough to put in a cookbook! (Obviously, he understands the tasters role very well.) The youngest fans in the family, my grandchildren Charlie and Lizzie, are my most loyal baking companions, as well as a constant reminder that cookies are not only about creating great sweet treats to eat but about bonding and sharing good times.

The cookie repertoire I remember from childhood was pretty different from todays. Everybody and his brother (or more likely his mother or grandmother) served up molasses-spice, gingerbread, and raisin cookies. People made lots of oatmeal cookies, sugar cookies, and date bars, as well. But except for brownies and chocolate chip cookies, the chocolate offerings were slim. And cookies tended to be quite small.

Chocolate chip cookies were very popular but came in only two basic stylesthose with a bare minimum of chocolate morsels and those with fewer! Cooks were frugal then and routinely skimped on add-ins, whether nuts, fruit, or chocolate bits. My grandmother, a good baker, would have considered my , which call for a pound of chocolate morsels for about 30 cookies, scandalous!