Cookie Love

Cookie Love

Mindy Segal, acclaimed pastry chef, owner of the popular Chicago restaurant Hot Chocolate, James Beard Award Winner, and cookbook author, was here last week for a lunchtime cookie baking demo and book signing of her new book, Cookie Love.

Mindy Segal
Mindy Segal

Cookie Love is a book which successfully straddles the worlds of both the professional baker and of the home cook by providing easy to follow recipes with unique twists that make them extraordinary. Funny, personable, and charming, Mindy rattled off a ton of great cookie baking info as she worked. How to roll your cookie dough, and how to roll and cut it for the highest yield; how to make brown butter and how to listen to the noise the butter makes as it’s cooking to know when it’s done (!) and (pure genius) how to use it to make brown butter streusel; how to fill a piping bag; four different ways to fill sandwich cookies and on and on. We all went home from this class with a better understanding of baking.

Mindy claims that her book “from cover to cover, teaches you how to break the rules.” Of course you can only break the rules successfully if you know the rules inside out, which Mindy does. So the best way to break the rules is to follow Mindy’s recipes – every one of which seems to have a trick up its sleeve.

halvah frosting
halvah frosting

Our favorite trick might be this crazy delicious vanilla halvah frosting that Mindy whipped up as filling for her fleur de sel shortbread by combining purchased halvah with a simple frosting recipe. Creamy, insanely delicious,brilliant!