The Only Cookie Recipes You'll Ever Need

With a typically delicious combination of cookie texture and chocolate, it's little wonder that the venerable Chocolate Chip Cookie is a true classic. Fortunately, such deliciousness doesn't come at the price of difficulty -- with the right recipe it's easy to make an excellent chocolate chip cookie.

Throughout my cookie-making-amateur-career, I've experimented with many chocolate chip cookie recipes before running across one that's simultaneously forgiving, easy-to-make, and good-to-eat. For me, the winner is Nestle's "Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies." You can see the recipe here. If you're looking for an alternative, I have recently run across a very promising-looking similarly easy-to-bake chocolate chip cookie recipe at the blog Big City, Little Kitchen.

Some tips regarding the Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe:

Vanilla and chopped nuts should be considered optional -- I typically don't use either and still get a great result. If you do use vanilla, if at all possible, do not use simulated vanilla extract -- although it's a lot more expensive, pure vanilla extract made from real vanilla beans has far superior flavor.

Like most cookie recipes, a stand mixer makes the process -- particularly creaming sugar and butter -- a lot more efficient and enjoyable.

If you're a little short on chocolate chips, don't worry -- the recipe as it stands is pretty chocolatey as is.

You don't really, truly need to use any specific brand of chocolate chips -- so if you have a preference (or find a sale!) go for it!

As with many, many cookie recipes, using parchment paper makes the process even more efficient and consistent (no sticking!). Silpat (silicone) baking mats are also perfectly acceptable, too, and achieve much the same result (but with a significantly higher initial expense).

Among the "core" cookies are a favorite of adults and children -- Peanut Butter Cookies. As with chocolate chip cookies, there are of course a range of different recipes out there, which vary a lot in terms of flavor and ease-of-baking. My favorite easy-to-make recipe for Peanut Butter Cookies is part of the Homebasics Recipe Collection. You can view the recipe here.

Tips for this recipe:

These cookies are even better-tasting if butter is substituted for margarine.

This recipe is very, very easy to double.

As with the chocolate chip cookie recipe above, vanilla is optional.

Parchment paper also works very well for this recipe, too!

Although a bit of additional work being a rolled cookie, the "secret ingredient" of butterscotch pie filling and absence of molasses still makes this an efficient and delicious treat, particularly around the holidays. You can view Kraft's Gingerbread People recipe here.

Tips for this recipe:

- Although the recipe indicates the dough can be chilled overnight, I find that the dough is far more workable if one only chills the recipe for about an hour.

- Of course, one doesn't have to stick to gingerbread people. Cookie cutters make virtually any shape cookie a possibility!

- A lightly-floured wax paper surface makes an easy, sanitary rolling surface.

- The glaze recipe below works very well on these cookies.

Sugar cookies, as the name suggests, primarily get their flavor and texture from an ample use of sugar. As one may suspect, these cookies thus taste delicious, but in my view only become true sugar cookies when creatively cut and decorated. The possibilities for such cookies are endless.

As for a good recipe, this is one of those cases where something that claims to be "The Best" actually is. I thus highly recommend "The Best Rolled Sugar Cookies" recipe from AllRecipes.com.

- Although vanilla is usually something I consider optional, in sugar cookies vanilla often provides a subtle but important flavor; as a result, I usually recommend using it if at all possible.

- Again, a couple sheets of lightly-floured wax paper can make a great rolling surface. Remember to also use parchment paper to completely avoid any sticking-to-the-pan issues!

- A glaze perfectly suited for a range of cookies, including these, are listed below.

- Most major grocery stores have small tubes of decorative icing designed specifically for cookies -- these make a great shortcut for those who want to get truly creative with cookie decorating without a lot of fuss!

For occasions when one wants to get decorative -- often the case with sugar and gingerbread cookies -- it's helpful to have some kind of glaze. I have found that simple is often better in this situation; a glaze made of corn syrup, icing sugar, water and food coloring is about as simple as it gets, but is still impressively effective. A little bit of vanilla can provide some additional flavorful "punch."

A great recipe for cookie glaze (don't be fooled by the 'sugar cookie' designation -- this works on many other cookies) can be found at AllRecipes.com.

Many tend to assume that such a delicious cookie as shortbread entails a great amount of difficulty. That may be the case with some recipes, but it certainly doesn't have to be!

Since I was a small child, I remember every Christmas (and sometimes in between!), my mother makes a special variant of shortbread -- a "whipped" variety with the "secret ingredient" being confectioner's (icing) sugar. Happily, I have managed to find a solid online recipe of exactly these cookies -- on Connie Weiss' blog. They truly do turn out as delicious-looking (and tasting) as the picture on her blog suggests, with a minimum of fuss!

For those who want a simple yet simply delicious chocolate cookie, one need look no further than Martha Stewart's Grammy's Chocolate Cookies. I have made these cookies numerous times, and have always found them to turn out fantastically well.

A few tips about these cookies:

- One does not have to make them as large as suggested; they are also excellent if they are a bit smaller than the recipe suggests.

- A good quality vanilla is particularly important here -- it provides the key additional flavoring that takes these cookies from good to "wow."

- Parchment paper works well here too, and may actually work better than a silicone baking mat!

- These cookies are so good you may want to consider making a couple of batches of dough right from the start!