My 200th Post + Gourmet Cookie Giveaway!
It's hard to believe that it's already my 200th post! Kind of puts things into perspective as to how much food I've been stuffing in my face. And what better way than to celebrate with more food! These gorgeous cookies are a celebration of butter, browned to give a sweet, nutty flavour to the shortbreads.
The recipe comes from the new The Gourmet Cookie Book, which collects the best recipe from each year of the famed culinary magazine's existence (sixty-eight recipes in all). It's such a nice throwback to your grandma's and mom's recipe cards, with such recipes like Brandy Snaps from 1949, Cottage Cheese Cookies (1962), Spritz (1983) and Grand Marnier Glazed Pain d'Épice Cookies (2009), amongst many others. It truly is a history bite-by-bite of how our appetites and cookie-senses have evolved over the years.
The beautiful photo and the simplicity of the recipe for these Brown Butter Cookies, circa 1961, caught my attention, and I knew I had to make them. A bit of patience is required to brown the butter, but for you who have done it in the past, you all know that it's well worth it. They're very delicate straight out of the oven, but become super crispy, light and melt-in-your-mouth the next day, with an incredily intense, nuttiness to it. The almond on top adds an extra little crunch. These will surely be made again in the upcoming holiday season!
I'm celebrating my 200th post with my first ever giveaway! You too can be the owner of this wonderful collection of classic cookies!
Share your favourite "old-fashioned" cookie memory. Mine is making sugar cookies with my mom every year during the holidays when I was a little girl. I looked forward to the weekend I'd spend making her put together the dough, and then the both of us sitting at the kitchen, rolling out the dough and punching out all the cute little shapes out (Frosty, Santa, teddy bears, angels, bells and more!). The smell of vanilla and sugar always brings me back to those days. I still use her recipe to this day. Comment below by November 8 before midnight EST. Contest is open to Canadian and U.S. residents.
The Gourmet Cookie Book from Gourmet Magazine. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $22.50. Buy now.
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24 comments:
Congrats on 200 posts! here's to 200 more! *cheers' apple juice*
A good cookie memory is probably how, even though I totally meant to bake them, when I make good old chocolate chip cookies I always end up eating half the dough anyway. You just take a small bit, and then a little more... and a little more.. and that bit off the spoon you might as well eat too, and soon enough you've only got a half batch of cookies, and by the time they're done I don't want cookies anymore cause I just ate all that cookie dough! Snacking while baking or cooking is one of my many weaknesses, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
It's gotta be thumbprint cookies - my first cookie memory!
Congrats on the milestone! =)
Nothing beats cookies baking in the oven where you start to smell that aroma filling the house. I remember sitting in front of the oven, waiting patiently for my cookies to bake. It's an exciting thing.
congrats!
My favorite cookie memory was right after my Dad got remarried (I was 5 years old) and, in an attempt to bond with me, my stepmom let me help bake a batch of chocolate chip cookies. She showed me how to measure and let me (help) use the stand mixer. Cookies + baking = bonding.
My mom does not like to cook, but my grandma does, and her favorite cookies are not baked at all, but are No-bakes, made with oatmeal and chocolate, on the stove. I remember that she always had them on-hand!
Thank you,...
My favorite cookie memory is making chocolate chip cookies with my mom.
hillaryanna at yahoo dot com
My favorite cookie memory was decorating gingerbread cookies with my stepmom and brother. Our entire extended family was coming over for the holidays so she'd made a triple batch of fabulously dark, aromatic gingerbread which together we cut out and baked what seemed like hundreds of little gingerbread people to hang on the Christmas tree. After laborously decorating the cookies for hours, my brother and I (bored and out of creative decorating ideas) started adding body parts (read: inappropriate body parts) to the cookies. We all shared a laugh when my stepmom discovered what we'd done... needless to say, those cookies didn't end up hanging off the Christmas tree.
My favorite cookie memory is definitely all the times my mom and I make chocolate chip cookie dough. We would bake about 10 cookies for my dad...and we would eat the rest as dough!
t.leetreats(at)gmail(dot)com
My favorite cookie memory is going to my grandmother's house as a child and making sugar cookies and decorating them with sprinkles and frosting. My mom wasn't much a sweets person but it was always exciting to go to Grandma's and make cookies! :)
aubreyfick@yahoo.com
My favorite cookie memory--I was twelve. My mother had just gone back to working full time, and my brother and I would usually get home from school about two hours before she'd finish her nursing shift at the hospital. One afternoon, we decided we'd surprise her with a batch of cookies. We found a recipe on the back of a Kraft peanut butter jar and carefully measured out all of the ingredients. I'll never forget the smile on my mother's face when she came back home and saw what we'd made. Watching her enjoy the cookies made us feel almost as good as eating them with her.
My early memories of baking Christmas cookies with my mum are among my fondest. Although Mum made fruit cakes weeks before, it was the baking of cookies that aroused in us the Christmas spirit. Every year, we made gingerbread cookies, hermits, soft molasses cookies, sugar cookies and thumbprint cookies. The baking frenzy continued with pies (usually apple), lemon and butter tarts, bread, and cinnamon and prune-filled buns. Of course, since my mum was of Ukrainian ancestry, she also made pyrohy and cabbage rolls. Food played a major role in our Christmas celebrations!
Hi, looks delicious...thanks for a great post. There are these amazing gourmet cookies called Biscoff. You might have heard of or seen them on Delta fights…they are imported from Belgium.
Oh I'd love to win this cookbook. I love baking cookies more than anything.
Awesome Bonita... mine is making shortbread cookies with Mom...
Favourite cookie memory...Oh that would be trying to bake a pound cake with my mom when I was 8 and ending up producing something crunchy like a shortbread. We had gotten the proportions so very wrong, but the cake turned out so very right...
I've never been able to re-produce the mistake!
Never one to balk at a complex recipe, I remember constantly making my favourite cookies, Whoopie Pies even at the tender age of 8.
They were two delicious and soft chocolate cookies held together with a creamy vanilla spread in between.
It was my Grandmother's recipe on my mom's side whom I never got to know as she died at age 59. However, I know I would have loved her as the last line on the recipe card is as follows:
"When cookies are cooled enough put filling between bottoms of 2 cookies and WATCH OUT! WHOOPIE!"
You can find me on Twitter @Dawnesaurus
Keep up the good, fun work Bonita!
my aunt does the holiday baking each year. as a young child i remember spending countless hours at her place helping to decorate
Congrats on 200 posts, what a great achievement in writing!
My favourite cookie memory is care of one of my best friends. She taught me how to make gingerbread cookies 2 years ago. We made a whole night of it! Dressed in our fashionable aprons, we punched out princess cookies and iced them to perfection with pastel colours. Not only did we make a huge mess, we had lots of laughs too. It is a memory I won't be quick to forget, and for me - it's the sharing of recipes and moments like this that making baking enjoyable.
Wow, 200 posts! Hope I hit that one day. Congrats!
My favourite cookie memory is baking peanut butter thumbprint cookies with my mom and poping chocolate rosettes into my mouth when she wasn't looking. ;)
Happy 200th post!
My grandmother was famous for her peanut butter cookies. When I was very small, I used to stand on a kitchen chair and help her make the crisscrosses on each cookie with the back of a fork.
Thank you everyone who entered my 200th post Gourmet Cookie Book giveaway! I loved reading everyone's cookies memories. Such great stories!
Congratulations to Dawne Marie, who was selected as the winner thanks to Random.org! You'll receive an email shortly.
Stay tuned for more giveaways coming soon!
congrats!
can i join in?
pls pls pl i win this!
i read your blog everytime..and i love your blog :)
Zarp
cos_kun88@hotmail.com
Unfortunately this contest is now closed, but if you come back in the future, there may be more contests!
Thanks for your interest and for being a loyal reader!
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