The Cookie That Changed My Life: And More Than 100 Other Classic Cakes, Cookies, Muffins, and Pies That Will Change Yours: A Cookbook by Nancy Silverton and Carolynn Carreño

    • Categories: Bread & buns, sweet; Afternoon tea; Breakfast / brunch
    • Ingredients: walnut halves; bananas; plain yogurt; maple syrup; vanilla bean paste; unsalted butter; poppy seeds; ground cinnamon; ground cloves; all-purpose flour; granulated sugar; grated nutmeg
    show

Notes about this book

  • AngelNewsi on March 12, 2024

    FYI - all the recipes call for XL eggs. I typically buy large eggs (and I'm guessing that's true for most Americans.) Just a heads up!

  • HazukaPie on December 22, 2023

    This book specifically uses Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt which is 3 grams per teaspoon. Most other table salts weigh more per teaspoon so you will need less if you don't buy this brand.

Notes about Recipes in this book

  • Banana bread

    • bwhip on January 01, 2025

      Wow is this some great banana bread. Pretty large, and takes a lot of bananas! I only used one split one for the top. I scaled back the nutmeg and cloves just a bit, since I was worried that they’d be overpowering. Flavor is great, not too sweet. Texture is fairly dense, but not too much so. Especially wonderful when warm from the oven!

  • Granola

    • kkmatti on February 11, 2024

      My new go-to granola recipe. Very crispy, good flavor profile, easy to make, and lots of granola clumps. The dates were a bit chewy for my taste so I'll probably leave them out next time.

  • Peanut butter cookies

    • Helin on January 01, 2024

      Made the full recipe, which yielded enough dough for 52 cookies at 21g/cookie. | Be sure to make the divots large enough so that the peanut butter doesn't spill over. | The peanuts. A tablespoon and a half of salt is a whole lotta salt, even for three cups of peanuts (agree with locopomtini about the amount of salt in the recipe overall). Also, 20 peanuts per cookie seems like an insane amount? I maxed out at 10, and even then it seemed like overkill. | 8-9 minutes of bake time produced a *very* soft cookie in my oven, and the peanut butter and peanuts on top seemed to weigh the super soft cookie down.

    • tarae1204 on January 03, 2024

      I had success with this recipe. Step I omitted to manage salt: When preparing the cookies to bake, after making the divot and placing peanut butter in the divot, I did not sprinkle the peanut butter with sea salt. But, maybe if you are *not* adding extra-roasted and salted Spanish peanuts on top, then the extra flaky salt would be good instead. Both could be salt overkill. While making this recipe I found some inconsistencies with the metric and volume measurements for flour - I just stuck to metric. Regarding the divots and inserting the fresh peanut butter into them: it is very hard to measure the amount of peanut butter that will fit without spilling over during baking. I'm not a pastry bag person. So what I did to help is I created the divot, then gently tapped down on the dough to make the divot wall heights more equal. That way, peanut butter wouldn't spill out the lower side of the divot when baking. Ultimately, this is a delicious, slightly tricky recipe.

    • locopomtini on December 26, 2023

      Peanut butter cookie page 92. In spite of under cooking the dough, they were still dry and not much flavor. The topping was good and would consider incorporating it into other recipes I prefer. Be aware of how much salt, I love salt and it was a lot when added in several steps.

  • Chocolate chunk cookies

    • bwhip on November 20, 2023

      These were excellent. I liked the method of baking them in rings, which gave them uniform size, shape and texture, and led to some delightful caramelized edges. Flavor was really good. My batch made just 13 cookies, using 3.15" rings. I also used just half the amount of chocolate chunks at the end to place on top (4 ounces rather than 8) - which was more than enough. Ours were fully baked in 17 minutes, straight from the refrigerator.

  • Chocolate chunk hazelnut slice-and-bake butter cookies

    • DKennedy on December 20, 2024

      Made these for part of a meal train basket. They come together in no time and are dead easy to make. Omitted the crushed hazelnuts on the outside and used crushed cacao nibs insted for a bit of texture and extra crunch.

  • Rugelach

    • Helin on January 01, 2024

      This recipe worked well. I opted to make the date filling and found that I would have liked a little more of it than what the recipe yielded. The date flavor was less pronounced than the cinnamon sugar and the walnuts.

  • Lemon bundt cake

    • bwhip on December 14, 2023

      This cake was good, very lemony, which we liked a lot. Fairly small for a standard bundt cake pan, filling it less than halfway. Texture wasn't what I was expecting, with a thick batter. More bready and a bit chewy, but not at all unpleasant, just different than I was expecting I guess. We definitely enjoyed its great lemony flavor.

  • Madeleines

    • jdjd99 on January 29, 2024

      These were perfect. I even used a silicone mold which the author recommended against, but the convection oven made up for it. They had great color, texture, and flavor. Will definitely make again. I used a large silpat mold and halved the recipe and the yield was 16 cookies.

  • Basque cheesecake

    • locopomtini on December 26, 2023

      I wish internal temp was listed. Removing cake when it’s pulling away from sides and jiggling led to overcooked cheesecake. Mine was barely pulling away. Final product way over cooked. Used convection oven method.

  • Yellow layer cake with chocolate frosting

    • bwhip on November 20, 2023

      This recipe was a disappointing fail for us. Cake mixing method was odd compared to most of this type - mix the butter in with the dry ingredients first (like a scone), then add the liquid ingredients and mix on medium for several minutes. I worried that this would make the texture oddly tough, and it did. The frosting was sort of a ganache with some confectioners sugar and golden syrup, but being made with milk it was very thin and never completely set up. More of a chocolate sauce than frosting.

You must Create an Account or Sign In to add a note to this book.

Reviews about this book

This book does not currently have any reviews.

  • ISBN 10 0593321677
  • ISBN 13 9780593321676
  • Published Nov 14 2023
  • Format eBook
  • Language English
  • Countries United States
  • Publisher Knopf


Other cookbooks by this author