Dorie Greenspan

If you’re looking for the ultimate chocolate chip muffin recipe, this version—with a cocoa-enriched batter and big chocolate chunks—is absolutely perfect.

Making spaetzle at home is simple and satisfying. Serve it with buttery mushrooms or pair the naked dumplings with any saucy dish.

The secret to a great lamington is to let the cake sit overnight so it will soak up more chocolate. This Australian specialty is then coated with coconut.

This tender, fragile shortbread is the result of a happy accident involving an extra egg yolk.

When you can’t decide between cake and cookie, bake classic New England hermits, which are dense, chewy, and spiced with Christmas flavors.

These chocolate chunklet cookies are ingeniously baked in a muffin tin, resulting in perfectly crispy, caramelized edges and soft centers.

My parents lived in Florida for decades and they vacationed there for decades before that. I don’t think there was ever a time when we kids were young that they didn’t come back with boxes of chocolate-coated coconut patties. I’m sure the coconut filling was supposed to be soft and chewy, as in a Mounds bar, but it was always a little dry (sorry to tell you now, Mom). Yet the candies still hold a sweet spot in my memory, and I thought of them when I started to make a Key lime pie.

These cookies bring back the memory of those malteds. Instead of syrup, I use freshly ground espresso beans (although instant espresso or coffee works) and unflavored malt powder — you can find it in supermarkets — which gives the cookies a warm, mildly vanilla taste.

The trick of making an espresso extract to add to the dough is a good one to know. If you want to use it for other things—a spoonful is good in brownies, chocolate sauces or even in chocolate chip cookies—make more than you need now and keep it in the refrigerator, where it will be fine for months. Of course these are good with coffee and coffee drinks, but they’re surprisingly nice with milk and not at all bad with cognac.

Turning a coconut macaroon into a pyramid is a festive way to mix up your holiday cookie plate. One more reason to love this cookie? The dough is as forgiving as play-doh: if your pyramids aren’t just right, roll them back into a ball and start over. Just remember that the trick to making them is to go low and slow—both on the stove-top and in the oven—to prevent the egg whites from scrambling. Baking guru Dorie Greenspan named these triangular pink cookies after designer Gaby Basora’s fashion l …

Dorie Greenspan uses ring molds to shape and bake these trademark treats for her Manhattan cookie boutique, Beurre & Sel. We press the dough into muffin tins for easy baking.

Throughout France, these traditional fried cookies are called "marvels" for good reason. For crisp, golden results, be sure that the oil is hot enough before you begin.

Sometime during the first year of my marriage, I visited my mother-in-law in her kitchen. There she was, listening to the radio, whistling (she is a formidable whistler) and rolling cream cheese dough around raisins and nuts to form the crescent-shaped cookies known as rugelach. I was spellbound—I'd had no idea that rugelach could be made at home. As far as I knew, rugelach, like ketchup or ships-in-bottles, were only made in laboratories. But here was my mother-in-law shaping the cookies with ease. And a short time later, there I was, eating them with ease. These cookies weren't like the rugelach my mother bought every week at the local German bakery—they were much better. I was so excited I asked for the recipe.
My mother-in-law wrote it out in her precise hand on a 3-x-5 index card. And, as she wrote, she told me that this recipe was not exactly the same as the one her mother used, that it had come from Mrs. Strauss, her next-door neighbor, and that she was sure I'd have no problem making the cookies as long as I didn't overmix the dough.
She was right. I was a newcomer to the world of baking, but I had no problem with the dough, the only potentially tricky part of the process.
Since then, I've made rugelach countless times, but nowadays my dough is even more foolproof because I make it in a food processor. I've also made a few other changes to the recipe. While my mother-in-law's rugelach were filled with cinnamon-sugared nuts, mine also include a slick of jam, some currants and a handful of chopped chocolate. This is a very old recipe, and I have no doubt that everyone who has made it has added or subtracted a little bit to make it her own—and my mom-in-law, Mrs. Strauss, and I expect you to do the same.