Happy day to you, especially!

Who is your favorite offspring?

I have favorite versions but dislike very few cookies.

Best chocolate chip: Mr. Picky's Toll House by the recipe on the old bags. He just makes them better.

Best shortbread: My Scottish nanny's simplest. But that could just be familiarity bias.

Best sugar cookie: an old Martha Stewart recipe.

Best ginger/molasses cookie: Betty Crocker Moravian Ginger Cookie with my mother's special touches.

Best spritz cookie: Carol's uncle's butter spritz.

Best commercial crisp little cookies: Rustic Bakery (all of them)

Best gingerbread cookies: Rustic Bakery Gingerbread Tile Cookies

anything made with cannabutter

currently finishing up a batch of chocolate chip using the tollhouse recipe. Not sure what I'll make next.

Can't sleep well without them.

“Best sugar cookie: an old Martha Stewart recipe.”

Could it be the one that includes a couple tablespoons of brandy? I’ve probably made those hundreds of times. Love them!

I have lots of favorites but do love my shortbread. I like to make them in star and snowfIake shapes for Christmas. I always made the Silver Palate’s Molasses Cookies for my mom at Christmas. These are from some from years back. I always add the royal icing dots to dress them up for Christmas.🎄

ETA - And Linzers that can look so jewel-like and taste amazing.

Like plllog, that's like asking who is my favourite child. I'm an equal opportunity cookie lover. But I guess if I could take only one kind to a desert island, it would be chocolate chip.

Not a big fan of cookies, or biscuits as I'd call them. I neither bake nor buy them. I find them too sweet and the commercial ones too chemical tasting. If offered I'd probably go for a ginger snap, a Bahlsen dark Schokoleibnitz or a Spekulatius style.

There's a whole range of commecial. Rustic Bakery can be bought in boxes at the grocery store, but they're real, not chemical. The Vanilla crisp little cookies have flour, sugar, butter, eggs, salt, vanilla. The gingerbread tiles are: Unbleached Enriched Wheat Flour (wheat flour (white flour by law has to be enriched like this), niacin, reduced iron, thiamine, mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid, enzyme), Butter (cream, natural flavors), Organic Powdered Sugar (organic sugar, organic corn starch), Cane Sugar, Non-GMO Molasses, Eggs (eggs, citric acid), non-GMO Glucose Syrup, Whole Milk, Spices, Cocoa Powder, Sea Salt, Baking Soda

No Brandy. A friend of mine made them and they were just perfect for what I want from a sugar cookie, so she passed along the recipe. I've only made them a few times, because I'm more likely to make shortbread, but one of the best things is that these cut nicely but are nothing like shortbread. They're...puffy. And sweet without being too sweet. They take icing well. They don't go floppy.

So, now I can't find the recipe. :( So, I googled including the decade and the AI and MS's website came up with this recipe:

Martha Stewart's Classic Cut-Out Sugar Cookies Recipe

This recipe is representative of the versatile sugar cookie dough Martha Stewart popularized, ideal for use with cookie cutters and decoration with royal icing. Ingredients

• 4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• Optional: Royal Icing for decoration

Instructions

1. Whisk dry ingredients: In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.
2. Cream butter and sugar: In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the softened butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Add wet ingredients: With the mixer running, add the eggs and vanilla extract; mix until well combined.
4. Combine mixtures: With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the reserved flour mixture, mixing until just combined.
5. Chill dough: Transfer the dough to a clean surface and shape into two flattened disks. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, or until firm enough to roll out.
6. Preheat oven: Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C). Line baking sheets with parchment paper or nonstick baking mats.
7. Roll and cut: On a lightly floured surface, roll out the chilled dough to about 1/8-inch thickness. Cut into desired shapes using cookie cutters and transfer the cut-outs to the prepared baking sheets, spaced about 1 inch apart.
8. Bake: Bake until the edges are lightly golden, about 10 minutes. Do not allow them to brown significantly.
9. Cool and decorate: Transfer the cookies to wire racks to cool completely before decorating with icing or sprinkles.

I’m a sucker for anything made with a wafer, even if those shade over into confections and candies rather than cookies. For real cookies, I like chocolate chip with white chocolate in big chunks.

Ricky, have you tried making cookies with CBD idea being to relax and sleep rather than get high? I’ve become a big fan of all things CBD. I found some CBD lotion that eases aches and pains incredibly well - better than OTC Lidocaine.

plllog, that looks pretty much the same as the one I use with the exception of the brandy. Mine also calls for half the ingredients (2 cups flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 stick butter, etc.) but I usually double it. The brandy’s not detectable but adds a nice richness, along with the vanilla. The recipe calls for 2 T. brandy or milk, but I’ve never made it with the milk.

I think my most fave is the butter spritz pillog mentioned, I only make them at holiday time. I've never considered chocolate chip a holiday cookie, but they are definitely another fave - I like them thin and crispy with walnuts and raisins added.

When I was a kid, we made these molasses rolled cookies from a 1960 WI Electric Co. cooky book, instead of gingerbread - they are buttery and delicious - the thinner the better...

I also have a fave recipe for thin and crispy oatmeal cookies with walnuts and raisins.

FWIW, the WI Electric Co. has a site with .pdfs of all their cooky books going back decades. I think I've shared it here before

https://www.we-energies.com/recipes/archive

I can't recall the names, but there are wafer-based treats with chocolate, hazelnut, etc. I don't normally have a sweet tooth, but will eat those.

Most cookies are way too sweet. I don’t eat them often.

As a child, I liked Oreos and those wafer cookies and chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin —the latter two with walnuts. No more.

Some of the best cookies were made by a friend when we went sailing with them:

Toll House cookies but with much less sugar and fat. Really delicious.

I seldom make these any longer, but a great cookie like treat is genuine Mainer Whoopie Pies. They freeze really well and when frozen the larger ones slice easily and neatly into halves or quarters.

Unfortunately, whoopie pies bought from country store, bakeries, shops, grocers are just too too ”cake” like (wrong texture!) and too sweet.

Make the original toll house cookie recipe, but, reduce the sugar, fat, and choc chips. Don’t forget the same amount of vanilla. Include medium chopped walnuts. Bake a lot of them. Hide some ;)

Danger Zone: Baklava!

I'm not much into cookies anymore but my husband still bakes at Christmas - the one I can't resist is the anise seed biscotti from il Fornaio Baking book

I've made lots and lots of cookies both growing up and as a mom- snickerdoodles became my daughter's absolute favorite, she'd bake them and take to high school ... and of course chocolate chip toll house, I could still make those blindfolded.. My specialty as a kid, though, was brownies off of the baker's semisweet chocolate squares box.

As far as commercial cookies, it seems like we always had oreos and 'nilla wafers around growing up - I remember buying the 'healthy' Paul Newman version for my kids from time to time. And the wafer cookies were addictive, I mean the small rectangular pink, brown, ones with a little frosting inside?! I remember an oatmeal raisin that I used to splurge on as a treat for my office lunches as a young adult when my food budget was tight - they remained soft... I forgot the name but the packaging was a rectangle with 3 or 4 stacks of 3 or 4 oatmeal raisin cookies on cardboard with a cellophane wrapper. I can't remember the name, if anybody remembers those please post:)

For backpacking it always had to be pepperidge farm mint milanos .... fun thread !

Well...back to your original question: My favorite cookie is Chocolate Chip! I moved into a high altitude home @ 7600'....been trying to get the texture just right. I think using margarine instead of butter works pretty well...then an extra TBL of flour.

Margarine has a significantly higher melting point than butter, so that makes sense! (My daily learn something new...though this oceanside dweller does not expect to put this into action. The highest I've cooked was about 5000ft.)

I can't think of any commercial cookies that I really like. Well, maybe the wafer cookies that have the chocolate hazelnut filling. But oatmeal cookies have always been my very favorite favorites. There are two recipes that I baked tons of when I was selling them at a local arts & crafts store. The best one has raisins and walnuts, the other has cranberries and pecans. Biscotti with hazelnuts is also very good, as long as it is not iced. I used to buy Nutter Butters and Oreos for my DH, they were his favorites. And my boys, of course being growing boys, ate any kind of cookie they could get their hands on. :^)

Rusty

Please, Rusty, explain "iced biscotti"! Wouldn't that ruin the coffee?

My favorites are probably Date Pinwheels and a vanilla ice box cookie that has snippets of candied red and green cherry and walnuts. I only make these for Christmas. I remember a cookie from my childhood that I loved, but none of my siblings remember it and no recipe. It was a soft drop cookie that had black walnuts and raisins in it and one I could probably recreate if I tried.

Oh my gosh, I used to make date pinwheels, that inspires me to actually bake !

@plllog....I didn't know THAT! It does explain why margarine works better. I was thinking water content....interesting....good information!