Cookie

This recipe evolved quite by accident in the restaurant kitchen on a particularly harried day. The baker had put a pan of blond brownies in the oven, and in the rush had left them in too long. When I looked at them, and then at her, our faces fell—the brownies were burned. But we had to have that dessert. “Don’t worry,” I told her, “I’ll think of something.” I knew I had to act quickly to get the desserts to the table. So I cut the brownies into pieces and carefully trimmed off the burned edges. I crumbled up the good part, sprinkled it with sherry, covered it with chocolate pudding and topped it with fresh whipped cream—and our Chocolate Trifle was born. Today it is one of our most requested desserts. Hope y’all enjoy. Oh, by the way, you really don’t have to go to the trouble of burning the brownies!

Legend has it that this dessert was born in 1600, in the monastery of Monte Sant’ Angelo, where there is a sanctuary dedicated to the Archangel Michael. As the story goes, while the nuns in the monastery were preparing the dough for the ostie—the Communion wafer or host—some of the almonds fell in the hot honey. Not having anything close by to pick them out, they used the hosts they were making, and so the dessert was born. In this simple dessert, two wafers are filled like a sandwich with almonds caramelized in honey. It is a treat for the faithful on the special holiday of St. Michael the Archangel on September 29—even nonbelievers will love them.

Cornmeal cookies are a favorite all over northern Italy: the Veneto has its zaletti, in Friuli we have gialetti. In Piemonte, you will find crumiri, piped into distinctive crescent-moon shapes. They are deliciously crumbly and just sweet enough.

In Padova, Treviso, and Venice (and elsewhere in Italy), sugar-dusted mounds of these fried cookies are served at weddings and holiday celebrations. They’re essential at pre-Lenten festivities. In the Veneto, it just wouldn’t be Carnevale without lots of crostoli! At our house, these are a favorite treat all year around. The dough is easy to mix in the food processor, and it’s fun for the whole family to make little ribbons and tie them in a knot. Make the cookies a few days in advance if you prefer, and powder with sugar just before serving.

Fregola means “crumb,” and fregolotta means “one big crumb:” for this delightful treat, you make and bake lots of little crumbs into two round cookie crumbles. This is an ideal cake/cookie: it keeps for days in a tin, and is delightful after dinner with some ice cream or whipped cream. It is the quintessential cookie to have with your espresso to finish a true Italian meal.

When I was a little girl, I would sneak downstairs with my cat Lider, while my sister and parents were asleep, and search the cupboard for the doily-lined tray that held these chocolate “sandwiches” decorated with an amusing chocolate scribble. I think these cookies were the first solid that my little brother ate. Garabatos are still baked in the home of a lovely woman named Elvira Bleyer. She extended her home kitchen, attached a storefront to it, and named it Délvis. The bakery has expanded and is now a franchise. These cookies are not part of the traditional Mexican repertoire, but they are part of my culinary memory growing up in Mexico City and are still served for dessert. This version was developed through a collection of recipes from friends and colleagues, but mostly from palatable memory.

It was dark and chilly outside as my friend Claudia Santa Cruz showed me how to make these marvelous crunchy morsels. As the egg whites whipped, her youngest daughter (about eight years old and a natural-born chef) measured the sugar she would later carefully pour. We moved to the dining room and three generations filled countless trays of the white kisses that would sit in the oven overnight. Claudia’s mother took several to her home because they didn’t all fit in the oven. I woke up around 5 A.M. to take a peek, and there was evidence that someone else had already been there, so I knew it was okay to take one. I took another, and before I realized it, I’d had a full meringue breakfast in the silent morning.

I want to thank Victor Gomar for sharing the recipe for these quick and fun morning pastries that are more like cookies. The sugary cocoa dough in the center helps shape them like a belt buckle and the same dough can be used to make playful worms (gusanitos) filled with jam (opposite page), Pastry Cream (page 164), or Cheese Filling (page 103).

Any kind of round cookie with a hole in the middle is called a rosquilla. Esther Villarreal Garza from Monterrey makes these sugary ones with a lovely orange flavor.

There is a really interesting publication from 1969 titled El Dulce en Mexico (The Sweets of Mexico). One of the things it talks about is old cookbooks with alfajor or alajú recipes (alajú means “the stuffing” in Arabic). The author describes a candy that he called a “type of fruit cake,” (even though it doesn’t seem to have to do anything with one) from 1786, which I, in turn, have translated. It is basically a sweet paste made from honey and different nuts, which is thinly “sandwiched” between two wafers. They are absolutely addictive! Feel free to play around with different nuts and spice combinations.

These cookies from Tamaulipas get their crunchy texture from the lard and the corn flour. They are rarely glazed, but you may choose to brush a beaten egg white and dust with sugar before baking them, as I like to do.

These cookies are fragile and it is almost impossible not to get crumbs all over the place when eating them, but that is precisely their beauty! The Arabs brought polvorones to Spain during their occupation, and the Spaniards, in turn, brought the cookies to Mexico when they settled in the land. The recipes differ in several ways, but the main difference is the Arabs used butter and the Spanish used lard. Nowadays, you can find both kinds in Mexico and others made with shortening or margarine. I tested many, many recipes, because I wanted the most crumbly, meltin-your-mouth cookie with the least amount of human error possible. I ended up with this recipe, which is a hybrid of the two and may be made with or without nuts.

This recipe is based on one in a magnificent book called Delicias de antaño by Teresa Castelló Yturbide and María Josefa Martínez del Río de Redo. The anise flavor comes from toasted aniseed as well as anise liqueur. These cookies are a unique preparation, because they are submerged in a sweet syrup after baking and dusted with sugar once they’ve dried out.

These cookies are unusual because you must make caramelized almonds, grind them, and then add them to the dough. But it’s worth it because it gives them a lovely and unexpected crunch.

GINA My man is the quarterback of the house—and I love him for it! He may call the plays, but when he does, I execute the sweetness all over the field. The dark-brown sugar gives these cookies the toasty football color, and the coconut, toffee-candy bits, and pecans will keep him from getting sacked. Who wrote that play, Coach? Maybe you should put me in!

When you’ve got your hands full with cleaning, you don’t have time for a full-on dessert stop. But these pecan bars will tempt you and “hit the spot,” in addition to making an incredible snack-pack treat when you’re on the go. Scrumptious brown sugar and chocolate are ooey, gooey, and satisfying, and they’re the perfect reward for a day of hard work.

GINA Can you imagine life without these two amazing ingredients? Who would want that? It would be like having fabulous shoes without a great handbag. Having chocolate and peanut butter is heaven on earth. If you think I talk a lot, give me chocolate and peanut butter and you won’t hear another word out of me!

I love how Italians use nuts in desserts, from almond cake to pine nut tarts. Here, those same pine nuts transform the humble cookie into something truly special. Crumbly, yes, but not too sweet—just delicate and fabulous. For a variation, try filling the thumbprints with homemade jam. Rhubarb would be delicious, making each cookie taste a little like PB&J.