When Dorie Greenspan Visits, She Leaves Cookie Joy & Know-How Everywhere

Dorie and Merrill made the cherry-nut chocolate pinwheels from Dorie's new book on Facebook Live earlier this week, and yes it was as smile-inducing as you'd expect.

"I'm here with one of my favorite people in the world," is how Merrill introduces Dorie—and Dorie introduces Merrill the same way. And then, then, they got to making cookies, something they both adore so much. “This is why I bake—I get excited every step of the way," Dorie squeals as she unveils freshly rolled chocolate cookie dough.

Along the way, of course they peppered us with great cookie know-how and insight—here's just a sampling. To watch the whole video, head to our Facebook Live channel.

• The first cookie to make in the book is the Almond Crackle Cookies. They’re “the magic cookie,” says Dorie, because they're only three ingredients—no butter, no flour—and come together quicker than the oven heats.
• The book has 170 recipes for all sorts of cookies. She could’ve kept going, but her editor told her no.
• This is Dorie's twelfth book. Maybe her next needs to be called Baker's Dozen.

• If a recipe in Dorie’s journal gets three purple stars, it means it’s good enough to go in her book.
• Dorie doesn’t love chocolate and orange together.
• The jammers recipe (jam-filled cookies) came to her in a dream. She baked them once she woke up.
• “Anything worth doing is worth overdoing”—so drizzle white chocolate on pinwheel cookies, duh.

• Dorie likes rolling pins that are the same width, without handles (like this). Dorie’s heard that the uneven pin is best for making rounds.
• You don’t need to refrigerate cookie dough before rolling if you work quickly—the dough will be the ideal texture right from the mixer. The same is true for pie dough!
• Add parchment on either side of your dough before rolling so the pin doesn’t stick to the dough, which won’t stick to your work surface. You might get some wrinkles in the dough, but that’s easy to smooth out.
• Make a double batch of slice and bake cookies so you can bring a frozen log to a loved one as a gift.

Signed copies of Dorie's Cookies are available in the Food52 shop!