Impressive! Cookie Love

Pastry creator and owner of Hot Chocolate, a dessert bar and urban café in Chicago, Mindy Segal recently put out a new cookbook entitled Cookie Love. Having never been to Chicago or heard of the author, I initially became interested in the book after seeing the cover. I mean – ohmygosh! Cookies! I'm not even a huge fan of cookies. When it comes down to it, I'd much prefer to have ice cream. Nevertheless, the beautiful pictures called to me, so I ordered the book…

When it got to my house yesterday afternoon I was enthralled. The book lists "more than 60 recipes and techniques for turning the ordinary into the extraordinary" (or so it says on the title page). I'm not really a fan of cookbooks without pictures; how are you suppose to know what the end result should look like? This book is overflowing with images. But not to the point of losing focus, which is always good. But if you are concerned that this book is just about cookies – and how many could there actually be, right? – you don't have to be! Mindy crams all kinds of desserts and treats into this book including breads, marshmallows, delectable sauces, and even sprinkles! Seriously! Who doesn't want to make homemade sprinkles? As if the recipes weren't enough, she goes into detail providing recommendations on which butters and flours to use as well as a measurement conversion chart for your convenience.

Justin and I decided to take one of the easier recipes on a trial run last night. All of his co-workers brought cakes and treats last week for Good Friday, but because Justin is catholic, he had to abstain and fast from food until dinner. Mindy Segal's Cookie Love provided us a good excuse to make up for that. We wanted to make a cookie from ingredients we knew we already had readily available in our kitchen – more specifically: sugar, flour, butter, and salt. Can you guess what we made?

SHORTBREAD COOKIES!

Let's get two things straight:
1. I'm not a baker … or a cook. I can burn water if I try hard enough. :) (Ok, not really…)
1a. Justin is good at it. Like really good. (But that wasn't technically point two.)
2. I'm not a big fan of cookies.

When I looked at the recipe in the book that afternoon before Justin got home from work, I chose it because of the simple ingredients. However, when I considered tackling it on my own, I shied away. The very first instruction is to "put the butter and sugar into the bowl of a stand mixer and refrigerate until the butter is firm, approximately 30 minutes". Seriously? What?!?! There is no way that I am picking up our heavy Kitchenmaid stand mixer and putting into into the fridge for 30 minutes! Further instructions made a little bit more sense, but as someone who takes information very literally, I knew that I could not attempt this recipe without someone with a little more cooking and baking knowledge.

Justin, on the other hand, despite agreeing that the first direction could have been a little bit more straightforward, found the Shortbread recipe particularly easy. Within minutes he had put together the dough, and within 2 hours it was done! It was quite literally one of the easiest and fastest recipes I have ever seen him put together. And the taste? Fantastic! We were concerned that the dough wasn't as sticky as Mindy Segal implied it might be, but that didn't even seem to matter.

Justin says that perhaps we will tackle some of her other recipes this weekend. I'm rooting for:

• Blondie Butterscotch S'mores
• Raspberry Rose Rugelach
• Peach Praline Thumbprints
• Brownie Krinkles

and/or

• Jill's Spiced Duble-Chocolate Cookies

This is our first cookie cookbook, and I couldn't be happier to have gotten my hands on it! I highly recommend it for people that love baking … or just need a good cookie recipe (or 60).

You can go here to learn more about Mindy Segal and her café in Chicago or here to purchase the book. Plus, if you are interested, Mindy Segal has tons of great youtube videos showing how to make recipes like this one where she makes Monkey Bread with Martha Stewart.

Before today had you ever heard of Mindy Segal, her book, or café? Will you be purchasing this book or trying one of her recipes in the future? 

* I received this book for free in exchange for a review. All opinions are my own.
** Participate in the A-Z blogging challenge with me! You know you want to! :)