Cookies, the new classics by Jesse Szewczyk: a review
Where I make cookies for the first time in my life.
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This article was first published in a French version here.
The quick review for the readers in a hurry
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A great book with very few defaults
❤️ The things I loved: the bright aesthetics, precise recipes and especially the flavors that were original and exciting
🍮 The recipes I made: all of them tasted great. Two really didn’t look like the picture, but at least, they were good.
😋 My favorite recipe: Smoky Muscovado Sugar Cookies
💪 Level of accessibility: Doable recipes, but requires equipment and a little time. Some ingredients are a bit fancy.
✌️ The long review for people who have time to kill
First, a long introduction about my mother-in-law, kiddies food and cookies
The few times I went back to India to visit my mother-in-law, who we’ll call here as in real life Belle-Maman, I knew in advance what I wanted to eat.
First, there was the kebab in a mall in Chennai: I hate hanging out in malls, but I assure you it was totally worth it to go through 3 floors of western brands that I already don't give a damn about in France, in order to eat this kebab. The stand doesn't look like much, it most probably belongs to a chain, but these pieces of chicken cooked in a tandoor or in a grill... It’s just so, so good!
I also couldn't wait to eat vada, a kind of donut (but only much better) made with lentils. It's a typical breakfast dish that I used to devour even though I usually don't eat in the morning. And have I mentioned veg fried rice, which is one of the most beautiful cross-cultural dishes that the world has ever offered us ?
Vada? Veg Fried rice? What’s all that?
To eat vada in Paris, you can go to Saravanaa Bhavan and order a mehdu vada for the modest sum of 5€. Veg fried rice, a classic of the Sino-Indian cuisine, is very easy to make. Here is a version of the recipe. As for the kebab, if you find yourself at Express Avenue in Chennai one day, the stand is called Arabian Hut - I think it's that menu. I didn't find much about kebabs in India, which obviously have nothing to do with kebabs in France, or even the original Turkish kebabs. But I did find this little comic strip that reminds us of the origins of kebabs in India, linked to the Mughal empire.
And when Belle-Maman comes to France, she above all wants... Pizzas.
Italy-France : 1-0 😂
But thank God for the French’s pride, she also wants some classic French food, like raclette, ham and cheese crêpes, and quiche lorraine1. As well as Toulouse sausages, Chinese sausages, Spanish sausages, who cares as long as it's a pork sausage. And then, she also craves for some cordon bleu that we renamed "baby food". It has always made me smiled that “cordon bleu” evokes more a prestigious culinary school for English speakers, because for me as a French, “cordon bleu” always reminds me of industrial kiddie food. The first time I “cooked” it for Belle-Maman (I mean, I just warmed up the packed thing), I was a little ashamed of serving her not-so-healthy processed food. I explained to her that it was served at the school canteen when I was little, and that I grew up so accustomed to it that I still felt like having it occasionally. Well, guess what? She turned out to be very fond of the "baby food" in question and now, when she comes to France, she always asks us for it!
Oh, and last but not least, Belle-Maman tried ALL the cookie brands from the supermarket. But when I say all the brands, it's really all of them, she could come up with an exhaustive benchmark of the cookie market in a minute 😄
Last year, this is what Belle-Maman asked me for her Christmas present: homemade cookies in a pretty box.
So that's what I did.
Easy, you might say?
Meh. I actually had never made cookies at home, because they're among the rare cakes I generally find too sweet and too fatty. How can somebody not like cookies ?! Well, I’m the living example that this absurdity can exist 😅
Why I loved Cookies by Jesse Szewczyk’s - hint: its amazing flavors
So what do we do when we have to cook a dish that doesn't appeal to us? We look for aspects that excite us a little more: original flavors and unfamiliar ingredients for example. And perhaps we look to the mother country of the dish, as this is where we'll most likely find recipes that reinvent its codes and flavors.
This is how, in the myriad of books about cookies, I fell for Jesse Szewczyk’s one, which ticked all the boxes for what I was looking for: an American author and, most importantly, some truly original flavors.
If you go back to the picture at the beginning of the newsletter, the cookie on the cover looks like a classic chocolate chip cookie. Well, it's actually a Lavender Chocolate Chunk Cookie, which I would have loved to make if I had gotten my hands on some edible lavender.
The cover gives a hint of the book's intentions: a strong focus on flavors that are out of the ordinary, that have the little twist that makes you go: "oh, that's a great idea!". Or, to quote the author, the book is: "an homage to familiar favorites, but with a modern spin".
If the expression "modern spin" worries you, let me reassure you: apart from a few strange pairings, the flavors are certainly audacious but remain greatly appetizing. It's not audacity for the sake of it, but rather unexpected and flavorful combinations of ingredients.
Here are a few recipes that tickled my curiosity:
A Spiced Peanut Butter-Coconut Square, where a coconut-chocolate ganache is paired with creamy peanut butter, cinnamon, ginger and cayenne.
A Cilantro-Lime Sugar Cookies: coriander, lemon and sugar is a mix I rather use in Thai salads, but why not for a cookie!
And, how not to mention it, a Black-and-White Tahini Cookie, flavored with vanilla and cocoa #tahiniforever!
Only a few recipes are too much of an improbable combination of flavors for me. I'll mention two to inspire you - or to make you roll your eyes:
A Maple & Peppered-Bacon Cookie - I've grown accustomed to eating maple syrup pancakes with the bacon on the side, but everything mixed into a cookie, I’m not ready for it...
A Salt-and-Vinegar Potato Chip Cookie - imagine Tyrrell's crisps with white chocolate, NO THANKS. The author tells us: "The acidic flavor of the potato chips brightens the cookies, balancing out their richness and making them taste lighter and more balanced - trust me!" Sure... We're not too far from mackerel rillettes covered in white chocolate at this point2 😅
But thankfully, these weird recipes are a minority. And in the end, they actually contribute to the appeal of the book: you always need a few WTF recipes to reinforce the creative aura of a cookbook, right?
A book for cooks who like to go off the beaten track
In the end, all the book's recipes will certainly delight cooks who like to go off the beaten track. Especially since, I had not talked about it yet, the book is also very varied in terms of cookie shape or type. We go from classic individual cookies to XXL cookies baked in a frying pan, passing by sandwich cookies like Oreos or cakes that have been cut like big slices of salami - I'm not exaggerating, one recipe is literally called Black Forest "Salami"!
In fact, hats off to the author for delivering so much creativity in a single-product cookbook, as these types of cookbooks are usually quite boilerplate and repetitive. Here on the contrary, each of the 100 recipes has its own unique combination of flavor, texture, ingredient and form. That Jesse Szewczyk has moved away from the "how-to" cookbook to create a joyful playground around the cookie is an amazing feat.
What about the recipes' actual execution and their taste?
Let's start by saying the most important: the cookies were delicious. I certainly didn't venture into crazy flavors, but what I did was really tasty.
In terms of execution, well… I may have had a lot of clichés about cookies, but for me, they were basic recipes where you mix butter, sugar, eggs, flour in a bowl, add some stuff on top, and then bake it and voilà.
Well, clearly the book goes a little further than that 😅
First of all, it requires a little bit of equipment, and when I say a little bit of equipment, I mean a food processor. This is perhaps the book's only limitation: many recipes can only be made with a KitchenAid - or good luck to you to beat the eggs and sugar by hand until they triple in volume!
Secondly, I am probably very ignorant and naïve, but I was surprised to see that some seemingly simple recipes required a number of manipulations. I also didn’t expect the diversity of methods and consistency in the various dough obtained.
I only wish I had understood why a recipe requires a certain method and not another. But until I understand all the mysteries of pastry making, even if I followed the instructions blindly, the cookies made were very good and that was the most important thing - especially since a Christmas present was at stake.
The recipes are also easy to follow thanks to the clear and precise instructions: I love it when I am told the speed of the mixer, the approximate mixing time, as well as the desired color, appearance or texture, or even the position of the rack in the oven. Long live precision!
I'd like to finish on a few positive points that I also appreciated.
The weights in grams and millimeters are given in parallel to the oz and cups, so no need to make conversions (my big pet peeve when I use recipes in English).
The summary, based on the dominant notes of the recipes, is quite clever: "Chocolaty / Boozy / Fruity / Nutty / Tart / Spiced / Smoky / Savory".
Coarse salt in cakes is great. The book puts it everywhere.
Finally, Cookies, the new classics has a fairly classic design overall, but I liked the photos by Chelsea Kyle, with their saturated colors, glittery stuff and a sort of disco-chic spirit.
In the end, did Belle-Maman like her Christmas present?
I think she did. I'm not the perfect daughter-in-law, but at least I can now bake cookies 😄
What about the American ingredients in France ?
I could reasonably make the majority of the recipes from the book with everyday ingredients AND a fancy supermarket or an organic store that would sell the ten thousand kinds of sugar the book calls for: demerara, muscovado, turbinado... I didn't know there were so many! (This site explains the difference between these various brown sugars).
After that, to get the full experience of the book, I had to break my piggy bank a little bit to get the American products that some recipes ask. First, to follow the methods used, like the omnipresent association of baking soda, baking powder and molasses, but also to test ingredients. But I also used the book as an excuse to buy liquid smoke, a product that had intrigued me for a long time, as well as creamy peanut butter. For people who live in France, I found them on My American Market.
Recipes I tried
Brown Butter Brownie Cookie - p 42
Of course, I started with this chocolate recipe, a classic taste as well as Belle-Maman's favorite! I considered it a success, because it tasted more or less the same as the brand she would have put on top of her benchmark. Even though I was proud to say it tasted better than the supermarket brand, thanks to the addition of coarse Guérande salt (my alternative to the kosher salt that the book recommends).
And hurrah, I also managed to get the cracks thanks to the directions in the book - I'll write them down here for you:
The key to getting the dramatic cracks on top is to be patient and whip the eggs until they are pale and ribbony, and then to work quickly so the melted chocolate doesn’t cool before the cookies go into the oven.
Pistachio Thumbprint Cookies with Raspberry Rosewater Jam - p 130
I chose this recipe as I wanted to try a "cookie thumbprint" where, basically, you stick your thumb in a ball of dough and then put a filling in it halfway through the baking process.
Also, the cookie looked good on the picture, so I wanted to try.
EVIDENTLY, as always when it comes to pretty cakes, I messed up my visual - for obvious reasons like rushing the pistachio chopping part. I also think the photo was a little too edited, because I don’t know how one could manage that bright green color. But the taste was nice: I wasn't such a big fan, but my friend, my mother-in-law and my partner just loved it. It tasted very much like a 4 o'clock cake, the kind of cookie you want to nibble on with a cup of black tea.
Smoky Muscovado Sugar Cookies (p 209) :
My absolute favorite recipe of the 4 made! Because the cookie was not too fatty or saturated, but simply had a warm taste of sugar, with a very interesting after-taste thanks to the liquid smoke and muscovado sugar. My classmate from the charcuterie school, who has a much more developed palate than I do, said the flavor reminded him of funfairs! In the end, the cookie was so addictive that there was only one and a half cookies left in the box before I had a chance to take a proper picture 🤷
Peanut Butter Caramel Millionnaire’s Shortbread (p 144) :
That one was a super tasty (and little calorific) cookie, consisting of a well-balanced shortbread (neither too buttery, nor too dry), a regressive caramel made with corn syrup, condensed milk and creamy peanut butter, and a rushed chocolate ganache. Why rushed ? Because you put all the ganache ingredients in a bowl and microwave them in ten-second increments. That's not how I learnt to do ganache, but hey, if it works!
I thought it was very good, and I guess one of my classmates loved it too if she asked me the next day that I had given her a piece: "by the way, did you bring your biscuit today?" On the other hand, my husband and Belle-Maman found it too sweet - which I thought was a surprising thing to say from people whose national dessert is the super sweet jamun 😆
It was a success in terms of taste, only the visual aspect failed, because of the not shiny ganache and the messy cutting (see the ugly picture above). And yet, I had let the cake rest and get firmer before cutting, so I don’t know what I messed up. Anyway, if you have any hacking ideas to get clean squares even with soft caramel, I'm interested!
To go further
I recommend listening to two interviews with Jesse Szewczyk, the first one on Taste devoted to Cookies. In it, one learns for example that he proceeds "backwards", as he first imagines the name of the cookie before developing the recipe itself. That’s intriguing!
The second interview on Salt & Spine discusses his first cookbook, Tasty Pride, about the American queer food community. It has received rave reviews. For example, one says : "it is rare for recipe headnotes to carry so much heart and vulnerability in 100 words or so, but Tasty Pride does it again and again, giving us accessible recipes and stories about resilience, acceptance and self-discovery." Heart, vulnerability? You wouldn't necessarily think of those words for a cookbook! Anyway, I would be curious to lay hands on this book one day.
Information
Cookies, the new classics by Jesse Szewczyk
Publishing house: Clarkson Potter
ISBN: 9780593235669 | 256 pages
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These are all very classic French food. Raclette, which originated in Switzerland (their raclette is actually much fancier), is melted raclette cheese with charcuterie. A very simple meal to do, because you just need to buy the charcuterie, boil some potatoes and melt the cheese on a dedicated machine. I’ve seen weirdly chic photos on the Internet while looking for a recipe, but really, it should stay simple and convivial. Like this ?
Ham and cheese crêpe : there are 2 ways to do it. The “basic” one with a regular crêpe base (white flour, egg and milk). And the “real” one as the people from Bretagne would say, with a galette base made out of buckwheat flour and water. Both are good, but if you want to eat the galette version, you can try this recipe (I would add more salt than a pinch).
As for quiche lorraine, it’s also supposed to be very simple. I’ve seen recipes with gruyère cheese, paprika, onions… Well, you can add these ingredients, but the basic recipe do not contain them. Normally, it’s just egg, cream, milk, salt, pepper and nutmeg for the filling, and bacon. And that’s it. Here’s a recipe that gets close to it.
Yes, that’s what a candidate from the Top Chef’s French TV show made during one of the challenges. Mackerel rillettes covered by white chocolate in the shape of a candle. He now serves it in his restaurant, but without the candle shape 😆