How to Make
the Perfect Cookie Box
For years, Melissa Clark has been on a quest to make the most delicious cookie box to give to loved ones, logging her triumphs and failures along the way. Here’s what she’s learned.
Eleven months out of the year, I make what would be considered an above average, but not excessive, number of cookies.
But come December, when I pretend my baking obsession is just an expression of seasonal glee, I give myself free rein. Around the holidays, I can legitimize a baking frenzy that, in June, would seem like the flour-dusted ravings of a gingerbread maniac.
While eating the cookies is part of the appeal, so is giving them away, packed by the dozen into tissue-paper-lined boxes. Off they go, to friends, neighbors, teachers, mail carriers — the list is as long as the shortbreads are buttery.
And, pandemic be darned, I plan to continue the tradition this holiday season. Even though I won’t throw a big latke party or Christmas Eve dinner, I can still deliver cookie boxes at a safe distance to my loved ones, a tangible way to spread joy when we need it more than ever.
To keep my yearly baking blowouts at least somewhat organized, I’ve kept a cookie log over the past two decades, noting substitutions, successes and the occasional cookie box failure. (Cardamom in the rugelach is a good idea; adding savory Cheddar cayenne crackers to the box is not.)
[For all eight of Melissa Clark’s cookie box recipes, see our collection.]
The log is also helpful for remembering which cookies I’ve made so I don’t repeat myself too often, and to preserve the recipes for future baking. My goal is always to create a visually stunning cookie box with a balance of flavors and textures that tastes even better than it looks. And over the years, I’ve figured out a way to do it that soothes, rather than adds to, my holiday stress — no piping, no arranging dragées with tweezers, no unearthing rulers or candy thermometers (though I do love a spritzing gun). Bakers should have as much fun making these cookies as their friends will have eating them.
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