Updated October 10, 2026 at 7:02 AM CDT
There are dozens of well-regarded cookie cookbooks. So is there anything left to say? America’s Test Kitchen gives us an unequivocal ‘yes.’
This week, ATK releases “The New Cookie,” a cookbook that shows off a breadth of recipes: chewy gooey Biscoff butter, salted malted milk chocolate chunk, gingerbread eggnog thumbprints, browned butter halva crunch, and black and pink cookies and so much more.
The beautifully illustrated book includes detailed explanations, instructions and tips, with as much to teach seasoned professionals and first time bakers. That’s because along with the exacting recipes are tips and illustrated tutorials on techniques. And in usual America’s Test Kitchen style, it also includes pictures of what happens when ingredients are swapped or used in differing quantities.
Host Robin Young recently visited Boston’s ATK facilities for a tour with Julia Collin Davison, ATK’s executive editorial director and co-host of “America’s Test Kitchen” and “Cook’s Country,” where Young also got a chance to bake with Davison, as well as associate editor Claudia Catalano and executive food editor Steph Pixley.
Tips from the pros behind ‘The New Cookie’
- Getting more intense fruit flavor in your baked goods
If you want more intense flavor in your cookies, cakes, buttercreams, muffins and more, try freeze-dried fruit! ATK’s Catalano says that using a spice grinder is the perfect way to turn the freeze dried fruit – like raspberries, strawberries or mango – into a fine powder that will add fabulous flavor, but not extra liquid which can make baked goods mushy at best, and at worst, completely ruin the shape and texture. The black and pink cookies in “The New Cookie” showcase this technique.
- Getting the right chocolate into the recipe
The ATK chefs recommend ‘playing’ with chocolate to make sure you get the right flavor and texture for the end result you’re looking for. For example, for a dark intense chocolate flavor, you might choose black cocoa powder, which is available both in stores and online. This is the cocoa used in the “The New Cookie” book’s black and pink cookies.
And when it comes to baking, size can matter. “We baked a cookie that uses regular-size milk chocolate chips, and then we compared it to the same recipe, but with the really big chunks of chocolate,” noted executive editor Pixley, referring to the salted malted chocolate chunk cookies. “The one that had the really big chocolate chunks spread throughout the cookie. Whereas the chips stayed chips perfectly fine.” She says that’s because the emulsifiers in the chips prevent them from spreading.
The result is that “All of a sudden you have a much bigger melted cookie,” she said, adding that “When you have a really big, thick chunk of chocolate in there, the dough will spread first.”
- Brown your butter!
Unless your recipe specifically calls for a technique like creaming (where butter must be solid) consider browning your butter for a richer, deeper, nuttier flavor.
Davison, ATK’s executive editorial director explains the science:
“Browning butter is the easiest way to bring your cookie to the next level. First and foremost, you’re browning those milk solids in the butter so the milk solids fall out of the emulsion. Those milk solids brown. And that gives you that caramel sort of toasted flavor. You’re also driving off some of the moisture when you have liquid butter and you mix in flour.
“You have what’s called free water that’s not doing anything. So flour has two proteins that come together to form gluten in the presence of water. So when you melt the butter, you’re freeing up that water. So then it gets mixed into the flour you make gluten, and gluten means a chewy cookie. And by melting butter, you get a chewier cookie, but also by browning it, you get more flavor.”
- Ditch the measuring cups and use a scale
For accuracy, and baking success, it’s time to swap your measuring cups for a counter top baking scale. ATK associate editor Catalano weighs in:
“I’m definitely a scale evangelist. It means that you’re going to have more consistent results in your kitchen, but it also means that you’re going to make your life so much easier. You don’t need to pull out your one-cup, half-cup [measuring cup] because you can just build it all on the scale. When you’re measuring an ingredient with a volume measure like a cup measure, it’s going to be different every time you scoop it, depending on how you scooped it. How firmly did you press down on the flour when you scraped the top to get a level measure on a scale? A cup weighs a cup weighs a cup.”
- “Rest” your dough
Resting your dough generally means putting it into the refrigerator or freezer. It’s common for gingerbread or sugar cookies that you’ll be shaping or cutting, but it’s a technique that can be used for other cookies as well.
Here’s Catalano’s bottom line:
“Sometimes, it’s for flavor reasons. Sticking the dough in the fridge actually develops some of those flavors further, [letting] deeper, more complex reactions happen. It also helps to tighten a dough. So if you prefer a fudgy cookie, actually refrigerating the dough for a little bit can help to turn a crispy or chewy cookie into a fudgy cookie.”
- Pro tip for people making sliced refrigerator cookies
Refrigerator cookies are the ones that you roll into a cylinder shape and store in your fridge or freezer to slice-and-bake later. But how can you ensure that they keep that round cylindrical shape? Pixley recommends saving cylindrical cardboard paper towel roll.
“So for a slice-and-bake cookie, you need to store the dough as a log in the refrigerator. It tends to settle and create a flat edge. So you slice the paper towel roll open… you put [the dough] in and then close that.” And into the fridge or freezer it goes until you’re ready to bake.
- Use pre-cut parchment to line baking sheets
One of the best ways to save time, improve baking quality (and even save paper) is to buy pre-cut parchment sheets to line your baking pans. They come in every size and shape to fit round, square and sheet pans, and cost no more than parchment paper.
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Karyn Miller-Medzon produced this segment for broadcast. It was edited by Robin Young. Miller-Medzon also adapted it for the web.
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Book excerpt: ‘The New Cookie’
By America’s Test Kitchen
Black and pink cookies
Salted malted chocolate chunk cookies
Triple citrus gingerbread cookies with white chocolate
Excerpted from “The New Cookie: Creative Takes on the Classics You Love.” Courtesy of America’s Test Kitchen. All rights reserved. Credit: Kritsada Panichgul.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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