UPDATE: We have a winner! #TeamMerrill's Soft Chocolate Almond Cherry Cookies stole your hearts, and #TeamAmanda's Chewy Vanilla Spice Cookies with Chocolate Chunks (Vegan, Too!) are being good sports about the whole thing.
Thanks to everyone who came out, ate cookies, and voted, and special thanks to Nielsen-Massey Vanillas for making our Cookie Truck dreams come true.
Read on below for the story behind the cookie truck, plus see what happened when it hit the streets of NYC, and find out the strangest answers we got to the question: Do you want a free cookie?
Imagine cookies. Now, imagine if said cookie recipes came from our co-founders Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs. You’re probably thinking something along the lines of, “Yes.” Then imagine if said A&M cookies were delivered in a cookie truck. But wait, it’s no dream!
The Food52 Holiday Cookie Truck, presented by Nielsen-Massey Vanillas, will be driving around New York City from December 7 to 13, distributing cookies and good cheer, but—naturally—only after a little healthy competition.
Competition, you ask? Well, this isn’t the first instance of a friendly cookie war between A&M (see below for proof!). But this time, they need your help developing recipes! The only requirement is the cookies use vanilla in some form, as all great cookies do. They'll take your suggestions to heart, and then you'll be able to vote for your favorite cookie—Amanda's or Merrill's—from the cookie truck.
And once the recipes are up, be sure to make them, too! Instagram what you bake, tagging your photos with #F52CookieTruck (plus #teamamanda or #teammerrill) to pledge your cookie allegiance. So here are their requests:
From Amanda:
Hey, everyone—my record against Merrill is shaky and I'd love your help creating a cookie that will leave hers in the dust graciously defeat hers. I'm looking for something that's chewy in the center with a crisp perimeter, a little salty and not too sweet, and the flavors I have in mind are chocolate and ginger. Any ideas and tips welcome....go! (And thanks from the bottom of my cookie jar.)
From Merrill:
Our last cookie showdown may have ended in a draw, but this time things are going to get real. And I need every bit of help I can get, because if there's anything Amanda knows cold it's baked goods.
I'm looking for a cookie with a good balance of salty and sweet and a crumbly/sandy texture (not chewy). It could involve chocolate, maybe nuts or oats, perhaps some fruit or jam. No meringues or sugar cookies—I’m going for something with a little more oomph!
Add your cookie suggestions to the comments below, or Instagram them, tagging your ‘grams with #f52CookieTruck (plus, of course, #teamamanda or #teammerrill).
And, finally, here’s that vintage (a.k.a. 2009) cookie video:
Best Chocolate Cookie Recipe from Food52 on Vimeo.
Photos by James Ransom, Bobbi Lin, and Mark Weinberg
We'll be tooling around New York City from December 7 to 13 in The Food52 Holiday Cookie Truck, thanks to Nielsen-Massey Vanillas.
Choose your holiday adventure! Our Automagic Menu Maker is here to help.
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Written by: Riddley Gemperlein-Schirm
Popular on Food52
44 Comments
Speaking of branded holiday cookies . . . . . . For years one of my best clients (a successful tech company with a brilliantly scalable SaaS product, requiring a relatively small staff) has given each of its clients and some of their lucky vendors, like me, a large tin -- a bucket, actually -- of holiday cookies that the staff has decorated. They shut down all business activities starting at noon one weekday in early December. The entire staff puts on aprons; a local cookie caterer brings over thousands of just-baked cookies cut into the five letters of the company's name, as well as pastry bags filled with icing, along with giant tubs of it and spreaders. The shipping boxes are all lined, labeled, etc. in advance, so the tins are shipped that night. So thoughtful, so memorable; it's also a team-building activity that the staff looks forward to every year!
This may not have as much of an impact on Food52's most important business relationships, as it seems that food-related companies are always giving each other food gifts, but the branding is certainly something to think about.
Also, just a detail here . . . . I don't know if NYC composts green waste city-wide, but if it's likely that the bags you'll be using are going to be composted, please remember not to slap gummed labels onto them, as they cannot be composted that way (unless someone has come up with a compostable glue . . . . ) Much better environmentally, and no doubt much more cost effective, to have your bags printed. And have you considered putting out a composting bin next to the truck for purchasers to put their cookie wrappers in, whether or not the city has a composting program? ;o)
I'm not sure what kind of production limitations you have for this project. The pinwheels are essentially a slice and bake cookie. If you want more details, just send me a note. I'm happy to do a proof of concept, and then send the recipe. ;o)
The Keller recipe can be found here:
https://books.google.com/books?id=yMZn936MHLcC&pg=PA326&lpg=PA326&dq=thomas+keller+ad+hoc+chocolate+chip+cookies&source=bl&ots=liB6KbjVMk&sig=QCsgKn2pNUEVxOD1d9AZtZ6jcRI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCIQ6AEwATgKahUKEwiS_YXSlcHIAhWMoogKHavqDUs#v=onepage&q=thomas%20keller%20ad%20hoc%20chocolate%20chip%20cookies&f=false
Alton's recipe is found here:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/homemade-dark-brown-sugar-recipe.html
Blackmarket Bakery in Costa Mesa,CA has a wonderful florentine cookie. A shortbread like crust topped with a caramel/honey/ginger mixture and topped with almonds and cranberries. Perfection. A layer of chocolate at the bottom of the cookie layer could only make things better!
Amanda: what about adding chopped chocolate or some caramel to a traditional molasses cookie and pumping it up with fresh ginger, plus a little romp in some rosemary sugar?
A cookie recipe i am looking for it a bacon-shortbread with maybe pecans, and don't forget maple something. I was thinking a riff off my son's favorite maple bacon doughnut. if anyone has a keeper already please speak up.
Merrill: I think a Russian tea-cake or Mexican wedding cookie has the texture you're going for... lots of ground nuts + powdered sugar. It could be fun to do a spiced up twist, maybe with warming spices like cardamom and cinnamon. And I'd go for scraped vanilla beans!
These pack a lot of flavor with the chopped crystallized ginger, even if they might not win a beauty contest. (I am now craving them, intensely, with the dark chocolate add-in.) ;o)
See what other Food52 readers are saying.