100 Cookies

Starred review from October 1, 2020

With one dessert-focused book under her belt (The Vanilla Bean Baking Book), veteran blogger Kieffer turns her attention to her first culinary love: cookies. Kieffer is perhaps best known for her trademark "pan banging" cookie baking technique. She shares all her secrets for creating these classic bakery-style cookies, dedicating a whole chapter to pan-banging recipes including new flavor twists like rum raisin and snickerdoodles. Flavor profiles are predominantly rich, sweet, and traditional, although Kieffer occasionally mixes it up with riffs on fresh fruit and herbs such as her olive oil sugar cookies with blood orange glaze and lavender cookies with white chocolate glaze. A chapter filled with no-churn ice cream and buttercream filling recipes entices bakers to experiment with sandwich cookies. More experienced home bakers will welcome the challenge of making macarons, meringues, and palmiers. Recipes offer measurements in cups and grams and are best for those with a basic understanding of the baking process. VERDICT Kieffer has created the perfect guide to creating classic bakery-style cookies at home; a must-have title for culinary collections.--Kelsy Peterson, Forest Hill Coll., Melbourne, Australia

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