“I am still in awe of how many people are making pan-banging cookies on a daily basis,” award-winning blogger Sarah Kieffer wrote to me this week.
Maybe, probably, you’re one of those people who couldn’t resist the Instagram whirlwind of DVD-sized cookies, boasting more ripples than a pond you just dropped something into. (If you’re not familiar, yet, see here, here, and here—and you might as well heat your oven while you’re at it.)
The now viral recipe debuted in The Vanilla Bean Baking Book, published by Kieffer in 2016. Luckily for all of us, she just unleashed another collection called 100 Cookies—and, yes, there’s a whole chapter of pan-banging beauties, from peanut butter to toasted sesame.
Beyond this stress-relieving technique, you’ll find chapters like “Fruitextravaganza” (think Raspberry Rye Cookies) and “The Next Level” (hello, Smoky Butterscotch Cookies). “The ‘Time to Play’ chapter was my daughter's idea,” Kieffer said. “When she found out I was writing this book, she sat down and drafted all her cookie ideas for me.”
From start to finish, the project took almost two years, yielding more cookies than any family could dream of fitting in a freezer. “My husband is a teacher, so I sent most of the test cookies to school with him each day—he would leave them in the staff lounge, and they would be gone in an hour.”
In addition to brownies and blondies galore, you can look forward to a slew of sugar cookies, from classic to brown sugar to chocolate. “I'm a big sugar cookie fan,” Kieffer said. And, honestly, who isn’t?
Likewise, there are several spins on the chocolate chip cookie. Including the famous pan-banging one, of course, but also soft, thin-crispy, and a brown-butter take, a favorite of Kieffer’s, which she described as “dangerous” when warm.
“I wanted to make sure there was a chocolate chip cookie recipe for everyone,” she said. “Taste is subjective, and we all have strong opinions about what a ‘perfect’ cookie is or isn't.”
The good news about 100 cookie recipes in one book is, you’re bound to find perfect many, many times.
Written by: Emma Laperruque
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