Christina Tosi - All About Cookies: A Milk Bar Baking Book

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Just when I thought I was the only one crazy enough to crush another cookbook assignment, I found my most loyal friends and partners at my side yet again, ready to climb cookie dough mountain.

Shannon Salzano, we would be lost without your brilliant eye, dry humor, silly voices, meticulous organization, journalistic word prowess, unstoppably can-do attitude, and killer taste. Im pretty sure that makes you a Septuple Threat

Jena Derman, shes all business, shes all party, shes on a red-eye, shes gearing up her motorcycle, shes solid wiggling all over town. And shes got twelve zip-seal baggies of cookies for me to taste, too. Shes ride-or-die, babaaaay.

Zo Kanan, from her first NYC job at nineteen to now, her brilliance brought a voice and lens to these pages that Im incredibly wowed by and grateful for.

Francis Lam, our editor, our king. The details guy to our cookie pie. Thank you for always saying YES! when we say AGAIN?!

Ian Dingman, our brilliant designer, who brought these pages to life.

Erica Gelbard, the promo queen, Chloe Aryeh, the marketing maven, and Kim Kaminsky, our unstoppable PR Goddess, for making sure every book has the perfect home kitchen to inspire.

Kim Witherspoon, life guide, book agent. Thirteen years ago, whoda thought wed still have words to fill the page?!

Henry Hargreaves, the brilliant eye behind the lens. Coach! Your calm, kind demeanor is the perfect balance to our crazy bakery mentality. You read us, and our cookies, like no one else. Thank you for bringing our work to life. Also, thank you, Rana!

Alex Watkins, for the beginning, the middle, and the end. We are so excited to cheer you onto your next adventure!

Abena Anim-Somuah (aka Beans!) for the brilliant recipe testing and friendship.

Cherese Derman for your killer eye and style.

Hilly OHanlon and the entire Milk Bar team, from photo shoots to cookie swaps and the most important just-because moments. You show up and show out every single time. You remind me daily of the superpowers a single cookie can hold and the ability a single idea can unlock. I could not imagine a better group of humans to have the privilege to spend my life showing up for.

To my unofficial creative directors and taste testers: Laura Wagstaff, Sarabeth Turner, and my most unimpressed and harshest critics: Iris and Charlotte Morrison. Thank you for keeping me fueled and humble.

To my family: Will, Frankie, and Butter. My last cookbook, promise! (That is, until the next one)

CHRISTINA TOSI is the two-time James Beard Awardwinning chef and owner of Milk Bar, with locations in New York City, Toronto, Los Angeles, Boston, Las Vegas, and Washington, D.C. She was also a judge on Foxs MasterChef Junior series, was featured on the hit Netflix docu-series Chefs Table: Pastry, and hosts the Netflix series Bake Squad. She is the author of Momofuku Milk Bar, Milk Bar Life, All About Cake, Milk Bar: Kids Only, Dessert Can Save the World, and, for children, Every Cake Has a Story.

SANDIES & SAMMIES

SAMMIES ARE ALL ABOUT THE brilliant realization that if you sandwich two cookies together with something sweet in the middle, nothing bad could possibly happen.

And sandies (with their cousins, the shorties) are all about the notion that oftentimes simplicity yields the best results.

Okay, but what the heck is a sandie? Sandies actually trace their heritage back to the French shortbread sabl cookiesabl meaning sandy in French. In American baking, we typically sub out some of the flour in a classic shortbread cookie for another ingredient, such as ground pecans. Shortbread is delicious, but this idea of partial ingredient substitution leaves the door wide open for curiosity, flavor, and fun. Ive taken the journey down several sandie roads and come up with my favorite combos for this delightfully crumbly, wonderfully coarse cookie format. (Also, shout-out to all the other brilliant countries that make their own version of a sandiealso known as polvorn in Spain, Latin America, and the Philippines, to name a few.)

In my mind anything can be made into a sammie. I mean, if you have a jar of Nutella and cookies looking at you longingly, why not? Only you know Im going to get geeky and take it as far as I can.

PB SANDIES

Makes 18 cookies GF

Do you remember the early days of quarantine when toilet paper was scarce and yeast was worth its weight in gold? When the lines for the supermarket snaked around the corner and flour was nowhere to be found, I wanted to develop a recipe for the folks who didnt have access to industrial-size rolling bins of flour like I do. My grandmothers are real waste-not-want-not types, so I looked in my pantry of random half-boxes of things through their eyes, and it hit me. I dont need flourI can use anything that I can grind into a flour-like state and just substitute! (Its how we riffed on a sugar cookie with freeze-dried corn to make Milk Bars corn cookies.) Once I narrowed in on Rice Krispies as my flour, peanut butter was a natural flavor direction, and these salty-sweet babes were born. Spoiler alerttheyre also accidentally gluten-free!

Rice Krispies arent the only thing you can grind downcookies, nuts, pretzels, oats, other cerealthe skys the limit!

If youre a more-is-more person, go the thumbprint routeuse a clean thumb to imprint into the dough round, then fill the empty space with MORE peanut butter! Technically that would make this a sandie-open-faced sammie, which is my kind of meta.

1. Heat the oven to 350F. Pan-spray or line two half-sheet pans with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.

2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the peanut butter, brown sugar, and butter on medium-high for 2 to 3 minutes until well combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the egg and vanilla, and beat until smooth, about 1 minute.

3. Add the Rice Krispies flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder and paddle on low speed just until the dough comes together, no longer than 1 minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula.

4. Using a 2-ounce cookie scoop (or a -cup measure), scoop the dough onto the prepared pans 2 to 3 inches apart. Flatten the domed tops with your palm (it will be a bit sticky, dont worry).