Too Many Cook(ie)s: Your Favorite Cookie

You'll be hearing from the staff at Food52 in Too Many Cooks, our group column in which we pool our answers to questions about food, cooking, life, and more.

It's time to dust off your tins, stock up on baking supplies, and prepare for cookie season. No holiday party is complete without at least one plate of shortbreads, gingersnaps, meringues, or snickerdoodles. And the more, the merrier. Because when it comes to cookies, everyone has certain textures, flavors, and add-ins that they prefer. 

This week, in celebration of Cookie Week and in anticipation of boxes of homemade treats, we asked the Food52 staffers:

What's your favorite cookie?

Do you go crazy for chocolate chip? Or are you more of an Oreo person? (This is a no judgment zone.) Tell us in the comments!

Merrill: Oatmeal chocolate chip -- a little chewy, a little crispy. 

Julie: Chocolate chip cookies sprinkled with flaky salt, like these (shameless plug).

Marian: There are too many answers here -- most notably fiveandspice's cardamom currant snickerdoodles, BLONDIES, fig and rosemary cocktail cookies -- but I ate so much Toll House dough as a child that it pumps through my veins, and so I'm going with Phyllis' chocolate chip cookies. Sometimes I bake them in a skillet and everyone gets a belly ache. I will also quietly just stand over here and say that I ate some Oreos this weekend and they were pretty good.

Jojo: Having to pick a favorite cookie is like having to pick a favorite child, BUT if I must, I could narrow it down to two standouts: Linzer cookies and Italian rainbow cookies. What can I say? Jam is my jam. 

Daniel: My mom's linzer tarts have too much nostalgic appeal for me to answer any other way.

Lucy: Around the holidays I’m all about the spritz cookies. Green wreaths preferred. 

Channing: Smitten Kitchen's toasted coconut shortbread are particularly heavenly (especially dipped in dark chocolate)! And nothing beats a chewy peanut butter cookie sprinkled with fleur de sel. 

Rachel: White chocolate macadamia nut. Come at me, bro.

Stephanie: Not a fair question. I cannot possibly answer. Mostly because my favorite changes from week to week. Today it is a buckwheat shortbread with currants and coconut, but last week it was molasses spice. Next week, who knows?

Gabriella P: Every year for Christmas, my grandmother makes Ghorayeba (loosely translated: Egyptian Butter Cookies). They're very small and melt in your mouth -- because they're pretty much entirely butter and sugar. I eat at least six in one sitting.  

Posie: In general, I prefer cookie dough to cookies but the only cookie that is better baked than raw is my mom's chocolate Italian biscotti and maybe these chocolate sandwich cookies my little sister makes me when I REALLY play my cards right, which -- full disclosure -- has been about four times in my entire life.

Charlotte: Linzer tarts (with raspberry jam and hazelnut dough).

Laura: I'm a big fan of a good ol' chewy chocolate chip cookie. My husband's mom makes the best version and we all thought it was "grandma's secret recipe." Turns out it was actually the recipe on the back of Nestlé chocolate chips.

Kristin B: I've never met a cookie I didn't like. Favorites: Those little flower-shaped ones from Sweden that they sell at Ikea (Anna's Ginger Thins. Secret santa, take note). For cookies I make, I love a classic chocolate chip. And oatmeal raisin. I don't know if I should publicly announce this, but I tried the pumpkin spice Oreos recently, and I liked them.

Lindsay-Jean: I love springerles, and I use the same mold to make gingerbread tile cookies too. 

Christina: Pizzelles -- I eat them by the stack when I go home for Christmas. 

Nicole: Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. They're even better with Ben & Jerry's Oatmeal Cookie Chunk ice cream (which is now in B+J's flavor graveyard -- RIP). My runner-up favorite is snickerdoodle, especially if they're a little undercooked. 

Lauren L: My favorite Christmas cookie has to be my grandmother’s snowballs, which are shortbread half circles held together by icing. In the summer, we call them golf balls because we are equal-opportunity cookie eaters. Chocolate chip meringues are a close second. I loved making meringues as a kid because the last step is to leave them in the oven overnight, and that meant I could run down in the morning to “test” a cookie for breakfast.

Jackie: I love a good chocolate chip cookie and these gluten-free ones are my favorite: soft, sweet, chewy, and totally satisfying.  

Hillary: I'm a little cookie obsessed, so this is a hard one. In high school, I used to bake about ten types, assemble lots and lots of cookie tins, and include an illustrated key (yes, I was weird). Chocolate mint thumbprints and pistachio linzer thumbprints were always winners.  

What's your favorite cookie? Tell us in the comments!