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CHAPTER 1
Bake Your Best Cookies
From equipment essentials and measuring basics to decorating tricks and clever gifting ideas, these expert tips will transform you into a cookie-making pro.
CHAPTER 2
Drop Cookies
Perfectly soft peanut butter cookies, sugary snowballs and thumbprints galore! Recipes for all the classics, plus the ultimate chocolate chip cookie cheat sheet.
CHAPTER 3
Slice & Bake Cookies
Fruity, nutty, citrusy, savory theres a flavor here to please any palate. Get Test Kitchen tricks for swapping ingredients, melting chocolate and freezing dough too.
CHAPTER 4
Bars, Blondies & Brownies
Toffee-Pecan Bars, Millionaire Shortbread and Double-Stuffed Brownies are just a few of the easy-yet-divine recipes found here. No rolling, shaping or chilling necessary.
CHAPTER 5
Spectacular Cookie Creations
Turn to this chapter for gooey grown-up smores, melt-in-your-mouth skillet cookie sundaes and sweet sandwiches filled with scoops of ice cream, jam and dulce de leche.
CHAPTER 6
Lets Celebrate!
Youll find a cookie here for every holiday, from Lunar New Year to Christmas and any occasion in between. Also: 25 ideas for how to spruce up sugar cookies.
One of my favorite things about working at Good Housekeeping is popping upstairs to the Test Kitchen for a meeting only to be greeted with a fresh-from-the-oven cookie.
Whether its a buttery shortbread square layered with fudgy ganache or a chewy chocolate chip cookie so tasty you would never guess its vegan, I know its going to be good. Thats because our Test Kitchen team bakes around a thousand cookies every year.
Every one of our editors and culinary pros has discovered a tried-and-true favorite (mine: Chewy Chocolate-Walnut Cookies, ) in the Test Kitchen freezer for when a craving strikes! So when the idea came about to fill a cookbook with our best-ever cookie recipes, it was an easy decision. Why wouldnt we want to share?!
Inside, youll find a collection of the best cookies to come out of our Test Kitchen ovens including our Blueberry Crumb Bars (), to name a few. Ready to find a new favorite? Heres what you need to know:
We organized these recipes by baking method drop cookies, slice and bakes, bars and other creations so you can choose a cookie based on your mood and how much time you have.
Theres one exception: The final chapter in this book is filled with fun, festive recipes for all sorts of celebrations. Whether youre looking for a sweet treat to make for Valentines Day, Lunar New Year, Easter, Passover or Halloween, theres something here for you.
Youll learn how to transform a batch of sugar cookie cutouts into something gorgeous with tricks from the pros. (Fun fact: Our Test Kitchen team goes through 30-plus pounds of confectioners sugar each year to make Royal Icing for Christmas and Easter cookies alone!)
Weve filled this book with beautiful ways to package up these sweets. Peep the Gift It! tips for the prettiest presentation ideas.
Our bonus gift: a cookie countdown calendar for December with 25 deliciously different ways to decorate a batch of sugar cookies ().
We hope these treats sweeten up your day, whether its a birthday, special occasion or any given Wednesday. Happy baking!
Jane Francisco
Editor-in-Chief
Bake Your Best Cookies
Get the (baked) goods on setting up your kitchen, measuring and decorating plus clever shortcuts, pretty packaging ideas and more. The only things you need to bring are an appetite and a frosty glass of milk.
Cookie Baking Basics
These Test Kitchen tricks will help you take your baked goods to the next level whether youre a rookie or a cookie-making pro.