Cookies are simple to make with few ingredients and can be modified to include fruit, nuts, seeds, and spices, and rolled, cut and decorated for any occasion.

Whether making and sharing easily transportable energy bars or delicate treats served on fine china, cookies are a sweet way to say, “I love you.”

Since my early attempts at cookie baking, I have been fascinated by the endless variety of both names and flavors of cookies. There are snaps, sandies, hermits, dainties, thumbprints, gems, biscotti, pizzelle, crisos, mondel brot, tray bakes, gems, moon cakes, whoopee pies and snicker doodles. I enjoy saying Karlsbader Oblaten as much as I enjoy eating the delicious butter wafer made crunchy with coarse sugar and groundnuts. Learning names of exotic cookies and tasting them is a hobby similar to stamp collecting but one I find more rewarding.

When my younger son, Matthew,  was eight he had a cookie stand during an annual two day garden tour in our neighborhood. We baked trays of cookies and after two very successful days, he was able to made a hefty deposit to his drum kit fund. Toffee cookie bars, called toffee tray bakes in the UK, topped with nuts and chocolate were the most popular. Here’s how we made them a few days before the garden tour: … read more