There are two ways to approach a cookie menu.

Many bakers use what’s called a base dough. You develop one really good cookie dough and then turn it into different flavors by changing the mix-ins (or inclusions, as the youth now call them). Many bakers will have a base vanilla dough, a base chocolate dough and a base brown sugar dough (which is basically chocolate chip cookie dough without the chocolate chips).

There’s an excellent case for using base doughs. When you’re baking at scale, a base dough is efficient. It makes production easier and helps ensure that cookies have a uniform size, texture and consistency from batch to batch. And lest anyone think this is about to become an anti-base-dough manifesto: I have seen, admired and eaten some absolutely amazing cookies made this way.

It’s just not how I like to bake.

I Have a Recipe Problem

For me, the fun of baking is in trying out different recipes; old ones unearthed from disintegrating cookbooks found at a yard sale, new ones found on a blog that I have to keep scrolling back and forth to read. Recipes that I tweaked because I don't have this thing but I have this thing that's sort of close to it. Recipes that my daughter texts me with a question mark. Recipes my sister sends me with a note - I think Mom used to make these. Sometimes I combine two recipes because I like something about each one. Sometimes I make something up entirely and see what happens. (and occasionally I discover that what happens is not good and quietly never speak of it again.)

I bake because I enjoy doing so, and I sell what I bake because there are only so many cookies the people in my life can reasonably be expected to eat.

This doesn't mean that every batch of chocolate chip cookies will taste completely different from every other batch. It just means that each type of cookie - peanut butter, chocolate, coconut etc. - has a flavor and texture specific to it. It also means I have a lot more dishes to wash but that is not your problem! (Editor's note: it's the Taster's problem.)

The Everything Cookie

Once in a while, you may see something on the menu called the Everything Cookie.

In this context “Everything” is short for: Everything That Needs to Be Used Up Before I Go to the Grocery Store.

There is no recipe. I open the pantry, assess the situation and start making decisions.

One batch might contain four different kinds of chocolate, coconut and cornflakes. Another might involve molasses, Nutella and coffee. There could be half a bag of pecans. A handful of dried cherries. Three lonely caramels. Some oatmeal. The remains of a bag of white chocolate chips. A bottle of Golden Syrup that I bought because they mention it all the time on the Great British Bakeoff. A bunch of flavorings I bought with a King Arthur gift card because it didn't seem right to spend a gift card on something as pedestrian as flour.

The Taster loves Everything Cookies, but this presents something of a problem because when he announces that a particular batch is “the best cookie you’ve ever made,” I frequently have absolutely no idea how I made it and it can never be replicated.

But isn't that true about most of the best experiences in life?