Paul Arguin - Fabulous Modern Cookies

fabulous modern

COOKIES

CHRIS TAYLOR AND PAUL ARGUIN

PHOTOGRAPHS BY

ANDREW THOMAS LEE

Copyright 2022 by Chris Taylor and Paul Arguin

Photographs copyright 2022 by Andrew Thomas Lee

All rights reserved

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to

Permissions, The Countryman Press, 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact

W. W. Norton Special Sales at specialsales@wwnorton.com or 800-233-4830

Cover design: Allison Chi

Cover and author photographs Andrew Thomas Lee

Book design by Allison Chi

Production manager: Devon Zahn

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

The Countryman Press

www.countrymanpress.com

An imprint of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110

www.wwnorton.com

978-1-68268-659-1 (pbk.)

978-1-68268-660-7 (ebk.)

To the harried bake sale cookie maker

With her counters strewn with dough and cutters

Or party-going lemon bar baker

With his freezer stocked with pounds of butter

The friends who rise at mornings dark hour

To bake up treats with love in their labor

With hands and brow both dusted with flour

To bring a grin to a lonely neighbor

To the mother wondring how to make ends meet

Who pours all her love into brownie squares

And bakes smiles out of sugar and wheat

For cookies designed to forget lifes cares

Theres magic in baking to show you care.

This book is for all those who bake to share.

WHEN WE PUBLISHED our first cookbook, The New Pie , we were frequently asked whether pies were the only things that we baked. Of course not! In fact, we have always enjoyed baking almost anything. When we started competing at state fairs more than a decade ago, it wasnt for fame or fortune. (If youve ever entered a county fair and earned a crisp $5 bill for a first-place loaf of bread or a best-in-show brownie, then you know that the joy of competing is not from earning prize money.) Rather, the contests provided us a wonderful outlet to continue to experiment with creating all kinds of baked goods, sweet and savory, with the goal of continuing to learn and grow in the craft of baking. While we have certainly made our fair share of pies (thousands, in fact), we still enjoy baking yeast breads, muffins, biscuits, cakes of all types, pastries, andof coursecookies.

But why a book on cookies? For one, we love cookiesbut thats not the only reason. To us, cookies are the most approachable of all desserts. Because theyre small, theyre not as fussy as pies or layer cakes can be. Dont get us wrong, pies are heavenly, but a good pie involves a lot of steps: making and rolling pie dough, filling it, baking it, and cooling it for hours before cutting and serving. It can be a lot. A drop cookie recipe, like a classic chocolate chip, is dead simple: mix, scoop, bake, cool, and eat (and, honestly, that cooling step is optional for some us). A pie can serve, what, 8, maybe 12 people? One batch of cookies can make three or four dozen and fast. Because of the effort, we like to say pie is for showing someone how much love them. Cookies? Cookies are for making friends.

Portable and already portioned into individual servings, cookies are the perfect sweet snack to share with others. As scientists, we are both mostly introverts, and baking has been a surefire way to meet people and make new friends. Want to meet a new neighbor? Bring them some snickerdoodles. Vying for a promotion at work? A plateful of chewy chocolate chips cookies cant hurt. Need to say youre sorry? A warm brownie can go pretty far in mending fences. Why cookies? We have a theory. Many families in America grew up with some sort of cookie tradition, and cookies are an indispensable comfort food part of our collective edible conscience.

Even though the two of us grew up in completely different parts of the country, we each grew up eating fairly similar cookies. Near Pittsburgh, Chriss family was influenced by the Pennsylvania Dutch tradition of baking. While he was growing up, his familys cookies would usually be the time-honored Christmastime treats. The occasional family wedding would offer the unique treat of a traditional cookie table, with dozens and dozens of cookies enjoyed by the guests while the bride and groom posed for photos between the ceremony and reception. The cookies he grew up enjoying were made using classic recipes from his moms well-worn Betty Crocker Cookbook replete with batter-stained pages dotted with handwritten notes. Just as frequently, she would bake from a handful of recipes snipped from glossy magazine pages or empty chocolate chip bags paper-clipped to index cards. During his childhood set more than 1,500 miles away in the sun-soaked Virgin Islands, Pauls mom would bake homemade brownies and lemon bars as her go-to snacks for bake sales and beach picnics. Recipes were pulled from cookbooks published by popular magazines, such as Better Homes and Gardens and Good Housekeeping . Many of our memories associated with cookies are associated with the feelings we felt when making or eating them. Perched on a stool, helping cut out gingerbread men with chubby preschool fingers. Or sneaking a small bite (or two!) of raw cookie dough from the mixing bowl when our mothers looked away (and long before our careers in public health began). The traditions of cookies are well established throughout the United States. Kids growing up on the white sugarsand beaches of Americas paradise and the snowy steel towns of the Northeast all snacked on many of the same types of cookies at their respective kitchen tables.

While they are certainly comforting, cookies are often very traditional. Many of the same recipes pop up over and over again: the same chocolate chips, peanut butter, sugar cookies, and lemon bars. Comforting? Yes, and there is a potent charm in an unbroken line of recipes handed down from generation to generation. We also honor that tradition, but we have never been fans of strict adherence to tradition solely for traditions sake. We still have fond memories of beachside lemon bars and Toll House chocolate chip cookies. However, we like to believe that we are not so blinded by convention to see the wonderful possibilities of cookies. Cookies are so amazingly diverse! From simple shortbreads with relatively few ingredients, to easy drop cookies, to cookies that are elaborately decorated, sandwiched around cream or filled with jam, bars, brownies, no-bakes, fried cookies, and on and on and on. Cookies are also amazingly adaptablesimple doughs can be augmented with fun flavors and textures, elevating them to new heights. In recent years, more food bloggers and cookbook authors have started becoming increasingly adventurous with their cookie flavors to reflect more modern flavor combinations, including those from global food traditions that more and more of us are beginning to appreciate as our knowledge of the world of food grows and the boundaries limiting the respectful learning about food cultures fade.