Cookie Lit 2019: 10 More Literate Cookie Recipes

Welcome back, Cookie Lit fans! Wednesday, December 4 is National Cookie Day and the New York Public Library staff has been hard at work baking more literary cookies to help you celebrate. Don't forget to check out recipes from our 2015, 2016 , 2017  and 2018 Cookie Lit blog posts as well!

A plate of cookies and a great book go hand-in-hand, so try your hand at creating some of this year's entries. Just click on any of these scrumptious-sounding recipes for a quick link to literary cookie goodness: 

Great Pumpkin Cookies | Blue Chocolate Chip Cookies | HardtackEmergency Shortcut Nutella Surprise Cookies | Iced Pumpkin CookiesBee-Happy Honey Bear Cookies | Gougères and Savory ShortbreadGingerbread and Mulled Wine | Spicy Red Wine Cookies | Vegetarian Strasbourg Pies

Great Pumpkin Cookies
by Jennifer Brinley of Parkchester Library

"Have you come to sing pumpkin carols? Each year, the Great Pumpkin rises out of the pumpkin patch that he thinks is the most sincere. He's got to pick this one! I don't see how a pumpkin patch could be more sincere than this one."
-It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown by Charles M. Schulz

This is a classic LIBBY’S® Pumpkin recipe and it's my favorite. These enormous(ly) robust harvest cookies make a great dessert, snack, or meal replacement. The oatmeal gives them heft and fiber. Adding ground nutmeg and cloves, in addition to the called-for cinnamon, gives these treats the lovely aromas and flavors that thrill pumpkin spice enthusiasts.

The cookies pictured have chocolate chips and only 35-50% of the sugar called for in the recipe, and they are delicious. I suspect this recipe would be great with other substitutions or adjustments to accommodate special dietary restrictions. Experiment away!

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/3 cups quick or old-fashioned oats
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg 
• 1 teaspoon ground cloves (optional)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened
• 1 cup packed brown sugar (can be reduced to 1/2 cup)
• 1 cup granulated sugar (can be reduced to 1/2 cup)
• 1 cup pureed pumpkin (LIBBY’S® or similar)
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (optional)
• 3/4 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
• 3/4 cup raisins (optional)
• Decorating icings
• Semi-sweet chocolate morsels
• Candies, raisins and/or nuts (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350º F and grease baking sheets.

2. Combine flour, oats, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt in medium bowl. 

3. Beat butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar in large mixer bowl until light and fluffy; then add pumpkin, egg, and vanilla extract; mix well.

4. Add flour mixture and mix well before stirring in chocolate chips, nuts, and/or raisins.

5. Drop 1/4 cup of dough onto prepared baking sheet; spread into 3-inch circle or oval. Repeat with remaining dough.

6. Bake for 14 to 16 minutes, or until cookies are firm and lightly browned. Cool on baking sheets for two minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely. Decorate with icings, morsels, candies, raisins and/or nuts.

Blue Chocolate Chip Cookies
by Zena George of Mid-Manhattan Library

"I recoiled at the taste, because I was expecting apple juice. It wasn’t that at all. It was chocolate-chip cookies. Liquid cookies. And not just any cookies — my mom’s homemade blue chocolate-chip cookies, buttery and hot, with the chips still melting." -Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

These beautifully blue cookies will give you the strength to get to Camp Half Blood and back! The recipe comes from the In Literature website, which has even more lit-related projects, both edible and not! 

Ingredients:

• 175g butter, softened to room temperature

1. Preheat your oven to 320º F and make sure ingredients are at room temperature.

2. Cream together the butter, sugars, and eggs.

3. Add in a splash of blue food dye to just the wet ingredients, ensuring a nice blue consistency through your cookies.

4. Stir in the flour, and then stir in the chocolate chip pieces. 

5. Scoop a tablespoon onto a baking paper lined tray. No need to press them down, they'll flatten themselves.

6. Bake for ~15 minutes (depending on your oven) and allow to cool.

Classic Hardtack Biscuits
by Arieh Ress of SIBL/Mid-Manhattan Library

"Soldier's letter, nary red,
Hardtack and no soft bread,
Postmaster, please put it through,
I've nary cent, but six months due." -Hardtack & Coffee by John Billings

Cookies? Wellll… loosely defined perhaps. Throughout history, millions have subsisted on these nearly indestructable and simple biscuits. There are a lot of fancier recipes for hardtack these days, but I went back to basics to see what sailors and soldiers dunked and nibbled for months on end. 

This recipe has very few ingredients but can turn flour (which has a shelf life of about a year) into something that can basically last forever. Be warned, however, that immortality comes at a price: it's called HARDtack for a reason. You can literally break your teeth if you attempt to bite down on one of these, unadulterated. Dunked and softened in coffee or beer, or crushed into crumbs (soldiers in Billings' time used their rifle butts) and dropped into soup is the way to go!

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cup all purpose flour

Note: for the basic recipe you just need three ingredients: flour, salt, and water. I used buckwheat for some added flavor, but feel free to experiment!

1. Preheat the oven to 350º F.

2. Mix together flours and salt, and then slowly add water while continuing to mix by hand. When you have a rather dry, but cohesive, lump of dough, stop adding water. If dough is wet, add more flour. You want it as dry as possible while still being cohesive.

3. Flour a workspace and roll out to about 1/4-inch thickness. If you need a guide, place a (clean) pencil next to it.

4. Using a nail (if being historically accurate), chopstick, or dough docker, if you have one, punch holes through your rolled out dough. These allow even more moisture to escape.

5. Cut rolled-out, hole-punched dough into squares small enough to dunk into a cup of cofee or a mug of ale. 

6. Bake on ungreased baking sheet for half an hour, flip, and then bake for another half hour. 

7. Allow to cool. Store in a dry place for, well… just about forever. Use caution when eating!

Emergency Shortcut Nutella Surprise Cookies
by Anne Rouyer of Mulberry Street Library

Inspired by One Day in December by Josie Silver

You know when you lock eyes with the perfect guy at a bus stop on a rainy miserable night, and you feel a giant zap of attraction and you know he feels it too, but you’re on the bus and he’s not and then the bus pulls away? And you can’t stop thinking about him, so you look for him everywhere and can’t stop talking about him to anyone who will listen? And then your best friend / roomie can’t stop talking about her gorgeous new guy, and all the great sex they’re having, and you just want her to shut up already so you can wallow in self-pity, but she’s so excited for her best friend and serious new boyfriend to meet, so you finally do and it turns out it’s your perfect bus stop guy? And now you have to act all happy for her and pretend you’re not dying inside?

This cookie is for exactly that kind of emergency. 

Ingredients:

• 16 oz. roll of pre-made sugar cookie dough*
• 13 oz. jar of chocolate hazelnut spread, any brand will work
• Different colored sprinkles / sugars (optional)

*You can make your own sugar cookie dough if you so desire. This is just easier and faster, and the cookies taste amazing!

1. Pull out cookie dough and allow to thaw for a few minutes per instructions; cover a baking tray with parchment paper and preheat oven to 350º F.

2. Using a scoop or spoon, dollop on wax paper-lined tray 12-16 rounded tablespoon scoops of hazelnut spread. Place in freezer for at least one hour until frozen solid. 

3. Using fingers, spoon, or knife, get about two tablespoons of dough, and flatten it enough so it goes around the frozen ball of hazelnut spread. Pinch it up tight so no spread leaks out.  Work quickly! The hazelnut spread will start to melt. 

4. Roll in sprinkles, if desired.

5. Place on baking tray about two inches apart, and chill in refrigerator for at least 10 minutes before placing in the oven. 

6. Bake 12-15 minutes or until golden brown.

7. Cool for two minutes, and then remove to rack and cool completely. Get ready to reach holiday nirvana. Tell everyone you spent hours making them. 

Bee-Happy Honey Bear Cookies
by Jenny Baum of Jefferson Market Library 

"A day without a friend is like a pot without a single drop of honey left inside."  -Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne

Disney eats have no dearth of Winnie the Pooh treats and pastries, but here’s a rustic spin on our favorite bear from the Hundred Acre Wood, and a great excuse to use honey and leftover Halloween candy, if you have any (I used Tootsie Rolls).
 

Make a day of it and visit the real Winnie the Pooh and friends at the 42nd Street Children’s Library. Just remember, no eating in the Library!

This recipe was adapted from Woman’s World Recipes to Collect:
 

Ingredients:

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 cup butter, at room temperature
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 24 Tootsie Roll Midgees

1. Preheat oven to 350° F.

2. Mix first 4 ingredients together.  

3. Beat butter and sugar together on medium-high speed about 3 minutes until fluffy.

4.Beat in honey, egg and vanilla.

5. Gradually beat in flour until dough forms.

6. Shape into disk, wrap, and chill 1 ½ hours.

7. On lightly floured surface, roll out dough to ¼” thickness. Using a bear head-shaped cutter or knife, cut
out 12 cookies, re-rolling scraps.

8. Bake 11-13 minutes until edges are golden. Cool.

9. For eyes and noses, trim Tootsie Rolls and attach to warm cookies. If you have an edible marker, draw a face!

Iced Pumpkin Cookies
by Kathleen Kalmes of Science, Industry and Business Library (SIBL)

Prep time: This is an adventure and a labor of love so don’t be counting minutes! Best when you have lots of time on a cold snowy day!

A year ago, I went on a fabulous trip, and learned that vanilla beans are very rare and can be grown in very limited climate conditions, which happen to be available in Hawaii. If you want to ferment your own vanilla from vanilla beans, but can't make it to Hawaii, they can be ordered online, and there are plenty of recipes and instructional sites out there!

After Hawaii, we moved on to Australia and New Zealand, where we found that pumpkins were a very ordinary part of one’s daily diet. We had some form of hot or cold pumpkins with almost every meal. Once back home, I noticed the farmer’s market sold pumpkins for cooking as well as Halloween decorations.

For more pumpkin (and non-pumpkin) recipes, check out Mma Ramotswe's Cookbook: Nourishment for the Traditionally Built by Stuart Brown. (Mma Ramotswe is the main character in Alexander McCall Smith’s Botswana based The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series.)

Ingredients: Part 1

• 2-3 lb. sugar pumpkin
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• small amount of sea salt

Pumpkin Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 350º F (176º C) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. Using a sharp knife, cut pumpkin in half lengthwise. Then, use a sharp spoon or ice cream scoop to scrape out all the seeds and strings.

3. Brush the pumpkin flesh with oil and place flesh down on the baking sheet. Pierce skin a few times with a fork or knife to let steam escape.

4. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until a fork easily pierces the skin. Then, remove pan from the oven; let the pumpkin cool for 10 minutes, and then scoop out the flesh and puree it in a food processor. You will only need one cup of puree for the cookies and can freeze any leftovers; then, the next batch is easier to make.

Cookie Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 stick of butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 1 cup of pumpkin puree (from your roasted pumpkin above)
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (you can buy vanilla beans and ferment them for six months, if you have the time)

Cookie Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 350º F.

2. Cream the sugar; remember to soften the butter first.

3. Add the egg, vanilla, and pumpkin, and beat until creamy.

4. Mix the dry ingredients separately (flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves); then, gradually add this mixture to the pumpkin mixture.

5. Continue to beat until smooth and creamy.

6. Drop on a cookie sheet by the tablespoonful.

7. Bake for 18 minutes. Cool cookies and then apply the glaze.

Glaze Ingredients:

• 2 cups of confectioners sugar
• 1 tablespoon of melted butter
• 1 tablespoon of vanilla
• 3 tablespoons of milk

Instructions:
Combine above ingredients, mixing in milk gradually to achieve a consistency that can be spread on the cookies. Not too liquid, not too solid! Glaze as desired.

Gougères and Savory Shortbread
by Jenny Baum of Jefferson Market Library

I’ve heard tell of someone who mentioned the gougères in A Little Life, by Hanya Yanagihara, as kicking off their catering business. While I initially thought "that’s what you got out of this emotional, intricately plotted novel?", I do think literature can play all kinds of roles in people’s lives—and it’s certainly true that food is rampant in this book.

The book has already inspired Antoni Porowski to make Gougères for Jude for the cheese company, Boursin, so that was the recipe I followed. I also wanted to put my own spin on a recipe, so I made savory rosemary crackers from the book The Flying Brownie: 100 Terrific and Homemade Food Gifts for Friends and Loved Ones Far Awayby Shirley Fan. This cookbook is great for tips on making and shipping care packages to loved ones, so it’s a good fit with the theme of food and friendship in the novel.

Gougère Ingredients:

• 2 boxes Boursin Garlic & Fine Herbs
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup water
• Large pinch of coarse salt
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 4 large eggs
• Freshly ground pepper
• Freshly grated nutmeg
• 1 cup shredded Gruyère cheese

1. Preheat the oven to 400° F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

2. In a medium saucepan, combine the water, milk, butter, one box Boursin, and salt. Bring to a boil.

3. Add the flour, stirring it in with a wooden spoon until a smooth dough forms. Stir over low heat until it dries out and pulls away from the pan—about two minutes.

4. Scrape the dough into a bowl; let cool for one minute. Beat the eggs into the dough, one at a time, beating thoroughly between each one.

5. Add the Gruyère cheese and a pinch each of pepper and nutmeg.

6. Transfer the dough to a pastry bag fitted with a 1/2-inch round tip. Pipe tablespoon-size mounds onto the baking sheets, two inches apart. Bake for 22 minutes, or until puffed and golden brown.

7. Once cooled, cut in half and pipe with Boursin. Serve as small sandwiches.

Cracker Ingredients:

• Black Pepper and Rosemary Crackers

1. Preheat the oven to 400° F.

2. In a medium-size bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, pepper, rosemary, and kosher salt.

3. Using a fork, mix the olive oil into the dry ingredients, and drizzle in 3/4 cup of the water. Stir until the mixture forms a ball of dough, adding more water if necessary. It should be a little sticky, but not wet.

4. Divide the dough in half; place one half on a piece of parchment paper, covering the other half with a tea towel to keep it from drying out. Roll the dough so it becomes a very thin sheet, using extra flour, if necessary, to keep it from sticking. It may take some time to do this, but the thinner you can get the dough, the better. Place the dough and parchment paper on a baking sheet. 

5. In a small bowl, mix the egg white with the remaining two tablespoons of water; brush the mixture over the dough and sprinkle with sea salt. Using a pizza cutter or knife, cut the dough into one-inch squares and repeat the process with the other half of the dough.

6. Bake until the crackers are crisp and lightly browned, rotating the sheets halfway through baking, 15 to 18 minutes.

7. Let the crackers cool completely on the pans. They will crisp up more as they cool. Snap the crackers apart, if necessary. Pack the crackers in cellophane bags, zipper-top plastic bags, or airtight containers.

Gingerbread and Mulled Wine
by Virginia Bartow of the Library Services Center

"She brought me some warm wine and gingerbread, and appeared exceedingly good-natured, and Linton sat in the armchair, and I in the little rocking chair on the hearth-stone, and we laughed and talked so merrily, and found so much to say: we planned where we would go, and what we would do in summer." -Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

The quote from Wuthering Heights inspired me to make the cookies and to take the picture. Mulled wine (or hot cherry juice), gingerbread, a warm fire and friends planning summer adventures. How much better does it get?

Gingerbread is the first cookie that I make every holiday season. It’s my favorite. The recipe (link below) makes a spicy, soft and crunchy cookie that keeps well. The dough is a dream to roll out, so you shouldn’t be afraid to liberally sprinkle the work surface and pat your dough with flour to keep it from sticking. There is enough dough to make several large cookies (for those of us who just have to have those extra large cookie cutters). I’ve made reindeer, snowflakes, turkeys, sunbursts, and all different sizes of ginger people. It would be a great recipe for an ugly sweater cookie decorating party!
 

Ingredients:

• 6 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface

1. Sift together flour, baking soda, and baking powder into a large bowl. Set aside.

2. Put butter and brown sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment; mix on medium speed until fluffy. Mix in spices and salt, then eggs and molasses. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture; mix until just combined. Divide dough into thirds; wrap each in plastic. Refrigerate until cold, about one hour.

3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Roll out dough on a lightly floured work surface to 1/4-inch thick. Cut into snowflakes with a 7- inch snowflake-shape cookie cutter. Space two inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper, and refrigerate until firm, about 15 minutes.

4. Bake cookies until crisp but not dark, 12 to 14 minutes. Let cool on sheets on wire racks.

5. Put icing in a pastry bag fitted with a small plain round tip (such as Ateco #7). Decorate and immediately sprinkle with sanding sugar. Let stand five minutes; tap off excess sugar. Let icing set completely at room temperature, about one hour.

Sanding sugar atop piped royal icing gives the icing an icy sheen.

Spicy Red Wine Cookies
by Arieh Ress of SIBL/Mid-Manhattan Library

"… and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -The Grapes of  Wrath  by John Steinbeck

This is a classic Italian cookie recipe I found, but gave it a spicy twist: I added 1/4 teaspoon of ground ghost pepper for a little extra wrath! Depending on your desired spice level or chili accessibility, you can substitute the chili powders of your choice. This amount made the cookies hot, but not unbearably so, though some of my friends thought otherwise. 

Ingredients:

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3 tablespoons white sugar
• 1/4-1/2 teaspoon finely ground ghost chili 
• 1 cup dry red wine
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar for decoration

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, chili powder, and sugar.

3. Add the wine and oil. Mix with a large fork and then with your hands. For those with sensitive skin, you may want to put on gloves, though the oil in the mixture should protect your hands somewhat from the burning effect of the chilies. 

4. Roll small pieces of dough between hands to make "logs", and then shape into circles. The circles should be no bigger than two inches in diameter. Roll cookies in extra sugar and place on cookie sheet.

5. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 25 minutes or until slightly brown. After cookies cool, they should be hard and crisp.

Note: These cookies can easily be turned into a savory treat, as well: Instead of rolling them in sugar at the end, sprinkle with sea salt.
 

Strasbourg Pie (made vegetarian)
by Jenny Baum of Jefferson Market Library

"The comet wine comes gushing out,

A bloody roastbeef’s on the table,
And truffles, youth’s delight so keen,
The very flower of French cuisine,
And Strasbourg pie, that deathless fable;
While next to Limberg’s lively mould
Sits ananas in splendid gold." - Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin; Oxford World’s Classics edition, a new translation by James E. Falen

Strasbourg pie is a meat-heavy pie traditionally made with fois gras and bacon in a pie crust. For my vegetarian version, I layered Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s porcini "bacon" from Isa Does It (I used portobello mushroom slices instead of porcini) on the bottom of my mini-pies in a muffin tin. I did this to prevent "soggy bottoms" which, I have learned from several seasons of the Great British Baking Show (aka The Great British Bake Off), are to be avoided at all costs.

I topped this with David Lebovitz’s  faux gras recipe.  The crust itself is from Vegan Pie in the Sky by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero.

This recipe would pair well with wine and pineapples (ananas), as the verse above suggests:

Probably everybody knows that Strasbourg is a city in Eastern France located on Isle River. But very few know what "Strasbourg pie" is. This treat was invented by a Normandy chef, Jean-Joseph Close in 1782; he even was awarded a title of a nobleman for it! Pushkin firstly mentioned the Strasbourg pie in 1819 in his letter to Sherbinin. In Pushkin's time it was prepared mainly from the foie gras—goose liver with the addition of truffles, partridges, and ground pork. Stuffing was baked in the dough like every classic French pâté. In the Middle Ages chefs produced only the stuffing and then gave it to the baker for roasting. Nowadays, Strasbourg pâté is being sold in the confectionery, so the name 'pie' is justified. The pie, filled with a large layer of lard, was delivered from France to St. Petersburg like preserved food.

Thank you to all our bakers, and to those who came up with ideas for them to bake! 

Please share your #CookieLit ideas below and you could see them in next year's edition. 
If you bake some of these recipes, don't forget to snap some photos and use the hashtag #CookieLit when you post.

See you with more recipes next year!