In retrospect, I suppose I was being cruel. My elderly grandmother would bake cookies and as a kid I would help her. She’d count the baked product and be puzzled, “I’m supposed to have 48 but there are only 45. I don’t understand.”
I was sneaking and eating the batter. I never told her. She never figured it out. She’s dead, I can’t apologize, and my therapist just laughs at me.
I don’t think cookies are a laughing matter. And certainly not cookie dough. Kristen Tomlan loves cookies and cookie dough. Every day her Greenwich Village store, Dō, serves up a ton of cookie dough. Yes, people come in and eat the cookie dough. When Dō opened, there was a block-long line and they needed a security guard to control the mass of people eager to gulp dough down.
I no longer feel alone. Or guilty
Hello, Cookie Dough begins with 50 pages devoted to the how and why of eating cookie dough. Oh, you can’t eat dough safely, can you? Those raw eggs will make you sick? No, just use pasteurized egg whites. You are home clear.
Almost clear. Because you don’t bake the dough, you are eating raw flour and raw flour can make you sick, too. Kristen supplies the solution by heat-treating your flour. And now, you really are ready to gobble that dough.
The book comes in three principal sections:
- Cookie Dough
- Confections
- Celebrate
The core of the book is that Cookie Dough Section which begins with 8 basic batters used over and over for the delicacies: signature, signature chocolate chip, brownie, brookie [brownie + chocolate chop], sugar, peanut butter, oatmeal, and cake batter.
Then comes a series of chapters, with very specific titles, containing a flotilla of ideas. Let’s look at the chapters and some representative delights:
- When You Feel Like Dessert for Breakfast
- Cinnamon Roll Outta Bed
- Coffee Toffee
- When You Over The Whole Adulting Thing
- The Frosted Fork [frosted animal cookies + white chocolate chips]
- Sugar Rush [cotton candy sugar + sprinkles]
- When You’re Salty But Need Something Sweet
- Salt and Pepper Perfection [nut brittle + black pepper]
- Dessert Focaccia [rosemary + chocolate]
- When It’s Bathing Suit Season But There’s Still Cookie Dough to Eat
- Rose All Day [strawberry reduction]
- Kristen’s Lemonade Stand [lemons + basil]
- When It’s Final Sweater Weather
- Caramel Apple Harvest [apples, Sprite and caramel bits]
- Triple B: Bourbon, Bacon, Brown Sugar
- When You Want to Have Your Cake and Eat Cookie Dough Too
- Classic Cream Cheese Buttercream
- Pecan Pie for the Win
- When You’re Trying Really Hard to Stick to Your New Year’s Resolution
- Protein-Packed Cookie Dough [protein powder instead of flour]
- Must Love Matcha [vegan with matcha powder and vegan butter]
Not all those cookies use one of the basic batters. For example, the Coffee Toffee has you baking from scratch with those pasteurized egg whites and heat-treated flour. Plus espresso, butter, white and brown sugar, and a batch of homemade toffee!
The Confections Section has four chapters:
- Besting in the Morning
- Best When Baked
- Best Served Warm
- Best Served Cold
Among the treats here are A Cinnamon Roll Worth Fighting Over and a Cookie Dough Milkshake. Why fight over a cinnamon roll? You would if it was made doubling down on flavor, filling the basic dough with both Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough and Cinnamon Filling.
The Celebrate Section has two chapters:
- Made to Share: Cakes, Pies and More
- Made to Party
What’s to enjoy here? Ah, what else but this Cookie Lover’s Cake with layers of cookie dough separated by buttercream:
There is inventiveness in this book coupled with serious care for cookie safety. The recipes are well written, easily executed and even more easily eaten. Oh, I guess you can use a spoon but I’ve always been an index-finger kind of guy.
This book is just overpowering in ideas that will appeal to the child in all of us. I know, you did eat cookie dough as a kid. You spooked your grandmother, too. Time to get back the dough. Big time!