What are the best homemade cookies in the world?

[Hatshepsut]

I love to bake, and over the years have developed a list of the best-of-the-best kinds of homemade cookies that (barring a specific dislike of a particular ingredient like nuts or coconut) everyone loves. It's actually 20 recipes long now, but with some difficulty I've narrowed it to my top 10 all-time favorites (in no particular order, there is no way to rank them). If anyone wants a recipe, let me know and I'll post it.

What would go on your list of best kinds of cookies?

1. Toll house cookies, especially if made with large pieces of walnuts.
2. Classic peanut butter cookies, the kind that have a fork-tine pattern on top.
3. Hello Dolly squares (a.k.a. six-layer cookies - graham cracker crumbs, melted butter, sweetened condensed milk, chocolate chips, walnuts, and shredded coconut)
4. Lemon lovenotes (a bottom crust of flour, butter and powdered sugar topped with a lemon custard)
5. Chocolate Oatmeal cookies (oatmeal cookies with cocoa and chocolate chips added)
6. Three-ginger cookies from the 2nd Silver Palate cookbook (made with fresh, powdered, and candied ginger)
7. No-bake chocolate oatmeal drops (that old church-supper standby of oats, peanut butter, cocoa, sugar and butter, mixed, heated, and plopped out to cool)
8. Snowballs (those Christmas cookies made with finely crushed walnuts, rolled in powdered sugar)
9. Special K bars (cereal, peanut butter and corn syrup bottom layer topped with a frosting of melted chocolate and butterscotch chips)
10. Caramel brownies (an appalling recipe of chocolate cake mix and caramel candy - I make my own caramel since we can't get the candy here - that produces a sublime chocolate-caramel result)

You can tell I like chocolate, oats and peanut butter a lot.

[Zenster]

Homemade Danish butter cookies. Straight from the oven with a tall glass of cold milk. Every Christmas season, my Copenhagen-born grandmother would bake a few bazillion of these butter conveyance devices. The store-bought tins of them cannot hold a candle to the real thing.

Date nut bars. I add an extra layer of crushed walnuts below the date jam for an even richer flavor.

Marzipan Macaroons. Freshly baked so that the exterior is nice and crisp even though the inside is almost gooey.

I've just decided that I'm going to work on a peanut butter cookie variant that uses roasted cashew butter instead. Possibly with chunks of dried apricot or cherry baked into them. Either that or do them as thumbprints with a dollop of seedless raspberry or blackberry jam. Thumbprints made with roasted almond butter might even yield up a sort of ersatz linzer cookie.

[pepperlandgirl]

I don't have the recipe right now because I'm at my mom's, but I make a sugar cookie that is literally the best sugar cookie in the world. In the world. I am not exaggerating. They are thick, and they're not too sweet, and they're always perfectly moist. I wish I could make a batch for everybody on the board and ship them out because you're life will change if you eat them and you'll always be grateful to me for showing you what true perfection tastes like.

[Hatshepsut]

Pepperlandgirl, if you have a chance at some point when you are home, I would love the recipe. Because as I general matter, I really dislike sugar cookies - they are bland, boring, and overly sweet. (I know, my favorite cookies are sweet too, but with other tastes to add complexity.) However, a friend of mine once made sugar cookies that completely changed my belief about what a sugar cookie can be - I think I sat down and ate the entire package she gave me at one sitting, that's how good they were. However, she couldn't tell me how she made them because she didn't have her recipe at hand, so she did it from uncertain memory.

So, I believe in the possibility of a tasty sugar cookie. But I need a recipe!

[Hatshepsut]

Homemade Danish butter cookies. Straight from the oven with a tall glass of cold milk. Every Christmas season, my Copenhagen-born grandmother would bake a few bazillion of these butter conveyance devices. The store-bought tins of them cannot hold a candle to the real thing.

Date nut bars. I add an extra layer of crushed walnuts below the date jam for an even richer flavor.

Marzipan Macaroons. Freshly baked so that the exterior is nice and crisp even though the inside is almost gooey.

I've just decided that I'm going to work on a peanut butter cookie variant that uses roasted cashew butter instead. Possibly with chunks of dried apricot or cherry baked into them. Either that or do them as thumbprints with a dollop of seedless raspberry or blackberry jam. Thumbprints made with roasted almond butter might even yield up a sort of ersatz linzer cookie.

We need a drooling smiley.

[Fink-Nottle]

My grandmother used to make the best cookies in the entire world every Christmas. She called them penny cookies (I have no idea why) and they were small, very crisp, white cookies with a glossy top. And they were anise flavored. Oh god were they good! And now she's dead and no one can replicate them...they're very tricky to make apparently. Sarahfeena is the baker in the family but she won't even try because she's a selfish bitch who gets sick around anise-smelling stuff. WHATEVER!

[Sarahfeena]

CairoCarol, my mom used to make those no-bake chocolate oatmeal cookies. Yum...I love those.

I think some actual recipies should be posted here, people! I have a great one for peanut butter cookies...will type it up when I get home.

[What Exit?]

Last Christmas I helped my Wife and Daughter make homemade Pinnoli cookies. These are the best cookies I have ever had.

I will try to get her to post the recipe or I will do it for her.

[Orual]

Snickerdoodles.

Oatmeal cookies with extra cinnamon and NO NUTS OR RAISINS.

Oatmeal/chocolate chip.

[vison]

Fink-Nottle, there are many sources for "lost" recipes. Look online or write to the lost recipe page in either "Taste of Home" or "Cook's Illustrated Country".

I don't like moist sugar cookies, I think they should be crisp. I have a recipe for Mocha Crackles that is very good:
Mocha Crackles



Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease shiny cookie sheets. Arrange your oven so the cookies bake in the middle.

Set aside some Icing Sugar. (confectioner’s or powdered sugar)

½ cup butter (1/4 pound)
5 squares (1 ounce each) UNSWEETENED chocolate. As always, the better the chocolate, the better the cookie. However, ordinary Bakers or Hersheys works just fine.
1 tablespoon instant coffee powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup white sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 cups plus 2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoons baking powder

-In a microwave or in a saucepan, heat butter, chocolate and instant coffee powder until the chocolate is melted. Cool slightly.

-In a mixing bowl, beat eggs and salt together.

-Add sugars, add chocolate mixture, stir very well.

-Combine flour and baking powder, gradually add to egg and chocolate mixture to form a soft dough.

-Cover and chill for at least 2 hours.

-Roll dough into ¾ inch balls, roll in icing sugar, place 2 inches apart on a greased cookie sheet. DO NOT FLATTEN, they will spread as they bake.

-Bake at 350 degrees F. for about 12 minutes.

Yields about 5 dozen. These are really pretty, and are yummy.

[Fink-Nottle]

Vison, we actually have the recipe. It's just that making them is apparently an art and no one seems able to master it. I haven't actually tried yet, but others have and they were not good.

[vison]

Vison, we actually have the recipe. It's just that making them is apparently an art and no one seems able to master it. I haven't actually tried yet, but others have and they were not good.

Can you post the recipe? And tell me what goes wrong when people try it? I've been baking cookies since 1950, dear friend, and might be able to figure out what's going on.

[Hatshepsut]

I think I recognize "penny cookies" from the description. Almost meringue-like, in a way? - an outer crunch, rather light in the inside? And the shiny outside was a very thin layer of icing? Or does that sound different from what your grandmother made?

I would gladly participate in a penny cookie baking adventure. I love a baking challenge. (And the heat, humidity, and lack of American flour I face here certainly offer one. My Oven Made In Hell By Small Goblins Doing Satan's Bidding doesn't help matters either. But I persevere.)

[Fink-Nottle]

CairoCarol, yes that sounds exactly like the cookie. I'm not sure if the shiny top was icing or not; could have been.

I have to get the recipe from my dad (who is in France for the month) so I can't post it right away. Sorry. But as soon as I get it from him I will post it or PM you both.

Thanks so much, Vison and CairoCarol!!!

[Sarahfeena]

This is awesome. Our dad will be SO happy if we can figure out how to make these things. Thank you thank you!

[Spork]

Oatmeal cookies with raisins are nom-nom-nommy

[Hatshepsut]

Time for another recipe so I'll post the caramel brownie recipe from my list. Do not be put off by the nasty processed nature of the ingredients (had I seen the recipe first rather than eaten some, I wouldn't have tried these, but that would have been my loss). Despite the use of cake mix (shudder) and candy, these are good. (I make my own caramel in Jakarta, since I can't get those soft caramel cubes the recipe calls for. The result is neither better nor worse.)

Soft caramel candies, about 400 grams (or make your own with 400 gms of sugar)
140 grams chocolate chips or semi sweet chocolate broken into pieces
1 small can of evaporated milk
1 box chocolate cake mix - any kind will do
¾ cup melted butter

Set oven to 180C° (about 325° F)
Melt caramels with ½ cup evaporated milk in microwave – stirring often. The consistency should be runny. Mix together cake mix, butter, 1/3 cup evaporated milk. Spread ½ mixture in a greased rectangular pan. Bake for 6 min. Sprinkle chocolate chips or pieces over layer. Pour caramel mix over chips. Spoon the rest of cake mix on top (It will have stiffened, but don't worry - just spoon it out in small glops in a fairly even distribution across the top and it will turn out fine). Continue baking for 20 – 30 minutes. Cool before cutting.

[Mr Chuka]

I can't go past "Auntie Cath's" refrigerated cookie dough in Australia.
Amazing!

I've actually eaten this stuff raw on more than one occasion.

[Julie]

My favorite cookie is snickerdoodles.

Runners up:

My sister Joan's toffee bars. (The kind that is a buttery bar cookie with a thick layer of chocolate melted on.)

My sister Monica's chocolate chip and her Russian tea cakes.

My mom used to make a coconut meringue cookie that was dreamy, and her chocolate crinkles are wonderful.

And now I'm hungry and want a cookie.

[Orual]

Oatmeal cookies with raisins are nom-nom-nommy

Infidel Defiler!

...
My sister Joan's toffee bars. (The kind that is a buttery bar cookie with a thick layer of chocolate melted on.)

My granny makes those (along with about 35 other kinds) around Christmas-time. Very tasty.

[Hatshepsut]

My sister Joan's toffee bars. (The kind that is a buttery bar cookie with a thick layer of chocolate melted on.)

Those cookies are on my complete list (I narrowed it to 10 for the OP).

For those who like nuts, they are also good if you sprinkle them with moderately finely chopped walnuts before the chocolate topping hardens.