Cookies for each day of the year
Cookie Madness blogger out with a cookie cookbook.
Almost every day of the week, Austinite Anna Ginsberg bakes something — a cookie, a bar, a cake, muffins — for her blog, Cookie Madness (cookiemadness.net), which she started writing back in 2005, the year before she won the Pillsbury Bake-ofi.
It makes sense, then, that for her fflrst book, “The Daily Cookie: 365 Tempting Treats for the Sweetest Year of Your Life” (Andrews McMeel, $24.99), Ginsberg came up with a cookie recipe for every day of the year: Buckeyes on the anniversary of Ohio’s statehood (March 1), green egg cookies on Dr. Seuss’s birthday (March 2), carrot and oat cookies on Eat Your Vegetables Day ( June 17), English flapjacks for the date the fflrst Winnie-the-Pooh book was published (Oct. 14).
Though she was baking from morning to night while writing the recipes for the book, she spent almost as much time researching the various dates, holidays, birthdays and anniversaries the sweet treats commemorate.
“Every type of cookie I can think of is in the book,” Ginsberg says, noting that one of the best things about writing such a comprehensive book is that now she fflnally has almost all of her personal favorites in one place.
Casual bakers might not appreciate the nuances between the fflve chocolate chip cookies that appear in the book, but the baking fanatics who follow Cookie Madness
certainly will. “Every cookie recipe is different,” she says. Just a hint of extra baking powder or vanilla can change not just the flavor, but texture and consistency.
Ginsberg doesn’t consider herself a particularly scientific baker, but a desire to bake a better cookie has forced her to learn more about the chemical reaction happening in her very own mixing bowl.
In addition to the recipes and the entertaining blurbs about why she picked each treat for each day, Ginsberg wrote introductory chapters that answer questions about baking (nonstick foil versus parchment, to sift or not to sift) that you might not have learned from whoever taught you how to make chocolate chip cookies when you were a kid.
And throughout the whole process, she kept up her almost daily blogging. “I was already in the kitchen,” she says. “What’s another cookie?”
Today might be 12-12-12, but it’s also Ambrosia Day. (Yes, that fruit salad made with marshmallows, pineapple, whipping cream and coconut has a designated day.) Anna Ginsberg created this ambrosia cookie in honor of her grandmother, who used to serve the salad at every meal except