The World’s Best Cookies – 101 Cookbooks

My mom received the recipe for The World’s Best Cookies fourth-hand. By the time I found the recipe in her three-ring recipe folder, it had notes on it written by three different women, along with a little floral stick-it note that said “really enjoyed dinner and spending time with you” from one of her lifelong friends. Featuring rolled oats, crushed cornflakes, chopped walnuts, and shredded coconut, the recipe was from the San Francisco A La Carte cookbook (first published in 1979). I kind of rolled my eyes when I saw the cookie name, but then I started baking them.

Pretty Darn Good

The headnotes in the original recipe didn’t disclose how these cookies were named, but they don’t disappoint. The thing that really blew me away was their texture, and crunch profile. The cookies are snappy, crisped, and butter-toasted. They have the slightest bit of chew from the oats and coconut. Barely any. The coconut is in there somewhere, but is more of an understated wink. Visually, they’re not much to look, so now when I bake them, I give them a boost. You can add sugar sparkles or raspberry dust to give a bit of flare if you like (see photos). This makes them perfect for cookie swaps, lunchboxes, and gifts. The recipe makes a large batch, and the dough freezes beautifully.

Pro-Tip

One of the things I learned the hard way with these cookies is the following. If you want to add color, add it immediately after baking. The first time I tried, this is what the cookies looked like going into the oven. The edges were rolled in a mix of sugar and crushed freeze-dried raspberry.
I should have know better, but you can see what happened to the raspberry in the process of baking. It went dark (photo below, see edges). So I tested sprinkling immediately after the cookies were removed from the oven, and that worked beautifully. Everything melded into the hot tops.

Here’s the final batch (below), with a generous dusting. The tang of the raspberry is nice here, but you can keep it “original” and just add a hit of large grain sugar to each cookie after baking.

The World’s Best Cookies: Variations

Honestly, I think you should stick pretty close to the original recipe here, but there are a few variables to experiment with!

• Cereals: You might play around with the cereal component. Swap out the cornflakes for puffed rice or another crunchy favorite. Crunch is key though.
• Raspberry Glow Up: The original recipe results in a cookie that is pretty amazing when you bite into it, but is unassuming and meh-looking on the plate. As mentioned above, I like to sprinkle them with a bit of large-grain sugar and crushed, freeze-dried raspberries to make them pretty. Sugar alone works for a more neutral, sparkly version – perfect for a holiday cookie swap. Experiment with different freeze-dried fruits.
  

My parents traded recipes with friends for decades. Now that they’re both gone, I love seeing the handwriting, side notes, and contextual reminders of where (or when) they discovered recipes they felt were gems. Details like dates, and which friend shared it with them. It seems like a lot of that personal texture is lost now that so much of our recipe ecosystem is digital. If you have family recipes be sure to take care and preserve them, including where they originally came from, when you enjoyed them, and any way your family made them their own. xx!

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