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Does Pan Banging Cookies Make Them More Delicious?

Published October 16, 2020

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Now that it’s mid-October, I think it’s safe to say that we’re no longer in “it’s too hot to turn on the oven” season. This is good news for bakers. (Honestly, as a maniacal bread-maker, there’s almost never a day when I’m at home that the oven isn’t on, regardless of temperature, but that doesn’t always mean it’s pleasant.)

I’m obsessed with bread (I’ve started work on a book entirely devoted to it), and have written about it a decent amount in this newsletter so far. That’s not the case with cookies, which I like, and will happily make, but don’t keep me awake with excitement all night. Sarah Kieffer is a different story. The beloved baker (you may know her from The Vanilla Bean Blog) is a cookie fiend, as demonstrated in her recently released book, 100 Cookies. She became kind of famous for advocating this technique where you tap (bang?) the cookie sheet in the oven every few minutes while the cookies are baking, which makes them crisp around the edges and gooey in the center (so damn smart).

To usher in “baking season,” I wanted to share (courtesy of Sarah) a few recipes from that book that we originally ran on Heated**: Neapolitan Cookies (beautiful, pictured above), Toasted Sesame Cookies (using that pan-banging technique), and Cinnamon Roll Blondies (one of those “why didn’t I think of that?” recipes).

**Ok, speaking of Heated, this seemed like a decent place to remind you that the vast majority of recipes and articles we publish there don’t make it into these newsletters, so if you want to stay on top of what we’re cooking/eating/writing/thinking about, just follow us. (To follow Heated on Medium, go to our website and click “Follow” at the top.)

Ok, PSA over. Check out those cookies. In the meantime, I’ll be baking bread.

—Mark

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