Welcome to another rendition of my Latest Recipe Testing series.
Lots of exciting things to share with you today! I thought it would be fun to take a break from recipes, and show you some cookbook behind the scenes.
Fourth Cookbook Coming in 2025
As I’ve mentioned a few times, I’m working on my fourth cookbook. It’s going to be my biggest, most polished book yet: 100 recipes covering many baking categories like breads, muffins, pies, cakes, cookies, cupcakes, etc. A handful of recipes will be from my website, but most (about 75) will be completely new and exclusive to the book. So in between the new recipes you find published on my website, I’ve also been testing new recipes for the book!
Lately I’ve been working my way through the cookie chapter, as well as the yeasted breads chapter.
The book will be published in 2025. I’m giving myself enough time and creative space to produce my best work for this project, while simultaneously keeping my website updated with new content. (And keeping my head on straight.)
Anyway, here’s a sneak peek at some of the recently developed cookbook recipes. I promise they are worth the wait. This is not the photography you’ll see in the book; these are photos taken for reference during the testing process.
Chocolate cherry cookies: A chewy, extra fudge-like cookie with a sweet maraschino cherry in the center. And of course, a generous drizzle of melted chocolate on top. This one took a bit of testing as the cherry released a lot of liquid and created over-spreading.
This fall-favorite recipe for brown butter pumpkin oatmeal cookies is getting a glow-up for its debut in print, with a little sprinkle of pumpkin pie spice on top of the brown butter glaze. The hardest part about testing these cookies and rewriting the recipe for the book was determining exactly how much moisture you need to blot out of the pumpkin… and figuring out how to write that in the instructions! (The easiest part was finding plenty of people who wanted to taste test them.)
You may have tried chocolate crinkles, and maybe even lemon crinkles, but ohmygoodness you haven’t truly loved a crinkle cookie until you’ve tried these pistachio crinkles. They practically melt in your mouth, and taste testers RAVED. I am really excited about this new cookie recipe.
Here’s another peek at these, before I figured out how to get them to properly crinkle like the photo above. I had lots of happy friends and neighbors and even my dentist (who else brings cookies to their dentist?!) taste test the first few batches.
I also stepped off the beaten cookie path and in a different direction with a savory cookie recipe! These slice-and-bake-style savory cookies are perfect for adding to a cheese and charcuterie board, or simply enjoying with a glass of wine. I know they don’t look like much (this is just an iPhone photo!), but they’re salty, peppery, herby, and hard to stop eating.
And what’s a cookie chapter without a new holiday cookie recipe?! These chocolate peppermint sandwich cookies include a festive peppermint buttercream. Even Santa will have to wait until the book comes out to try these. Sorry, Santa!
I also spent a lot of time working on a new crumb cake-style cookie. These cookies were an absolute mess when I first started. The crumb topping either (1) spread all over the place or (2) looked like ground beef. The final recipe you’ll find in the book stays nicely put on the cookies, and they’re less ground-beefy-looking. LOL. Excuse the blurry photo, this is a screenshot of a video I took…
You’ll also find these fan-favorite peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies in the book, too!
Have you seen my Instagram stories about the strawberry lemon cookie saga? The swirl concept just wasn’t working; the texture was way off and the lemon flavor wasn’t shining through as much as I wanted. At some point, I had to give up and move on. However, you’ll find another strawberry lemon cookie and while they aren’t swirled, they are EVEN BETTER… and probably my favorite new cookie recipe in the book. I have the rest of my team testing them this week.
There will be about 15 cookie recipes in the book, so this is just a little preview. 🙂
Moving on to the yeasted bread chapter…
I can’t get enough of this cinnamon raisin swirl bread, which I adapted from my homemade cinnamon swirl bread, with some adjustments. It is super soft, extra cinnamon-swirly, and makes the most delicious cinnamon raisin toast.
I get a lot of questions about making homemade sandwich bread with whole wheat flour, and usually point readers in the direction of this multigrain bread. But I have a new sandwich bread recipe going in the book that includes oats and whole wheat flour, and it’s unbelievably soft and flavorful.
Right now, I have new recipes for jalapeño cheddar bread and brioche-style sandwich rolls in the works, and you’ll be sure to find my popular pizza dough and soft pretzel recipes in the book as well. This is my 1st cookbook with some savory recipes in it. (Quiche, stromboli, cheesy popovers!)
My team and I are also testing seasonal pie/crisp recipes right now using spring and summer fruits that you can’t get any other time of year. I’ve never been more excited to work on a project, and I can’t wait for it to all come together. Thank you for your patience!!
More to come soon. In the meantime, I’m sharing some behind-the-scenes snippets on my Instagram Stories, so be sure to pop in and check them out. And if you want even more, here is my cookbook recipe testing, volume 2.
Q: Which of these new recipes are you most excited to try?
Reader Comments and Reviews
Quiero la receta de galletas arrugadas de chocolate las arrrugadas de limón y las de pistacho y todas las galletas que aparecen
en este artículo ,tambien la de pan de remolino de pasas y canela
¡Me alegro de que te animes a estas recetas! Estarán en mi próximo libro de cocina. Aquí están las galletas arrugadas de limón.
I love savoury cookies (with a cheeseboard!) And I hope you’ll add some crackers, too. I’m excited about the chocolate-cherry most of all.
I’m so excited for the release of your new cookbook! I love your recipes!! In fact, I just made your homemade pie crust and chicken pot pie last night for dinner and when my husband raved about it I commented that I can always count on your recipes for quality, taste and consistency because of your thorough testing. Thank you!!
Thank you Vickie, and that chicken pot pie is one of my most popular savory recipes. I love it.
I just love your website! I have yet to make a recipe that isn’t delicious. I made the key lime bars and they are scrumptious, everyone loved them!
Thank you so much, Deanna!
Can’t wait to try Pistachio Crinkle Cookies!
So good!
You know what you are doing, getting us all salivating!! But we might just dehydrate by 2025, so I think it’s only fair that we are compensated for our water depletion and, as a gesture of good will for the Christmas holidays, that you share that festive sandwich cookie. Not to eat ourselves..OF COURSE..but to share with others in the spirit of the holiday. Yes, that’s it. And of course, you will have even MORE people clamoring for the book (despite the unfortunate dehydration) and sales will increase 100-fold (per scientific research conducted based on a survey of my friends who have relayed they are willing to sacrifice their bodily liquids for the a mere morsel of that cookie). Please consider?
HAHAHA! I will consider!!
Thank you for sharing the news on your upcoming cookbook Sally. I am looking forward to your bread recipes along with the crisps recipes. I enjoy all the cookie recipes you have shared since the beginning and look forward to your new ideas, especially the new savory cookie, great idea. Wish I was your neighbor so I could be one of your taste testers!!!!
Thanks for the excitement, Deb!!!
Can’t wait for this cookbook! I can always bake your cookie recipes with confidence that they will be winners!
Thank you so much, Nancy!
Are you sure we have to wait until 2025 for that pistachio crinkle cookie? 🙂 I have all your other books and know how much love you put into those, so I know this one will be worth the wait! Thank you for sharing, I always love a behind the scene post.
Thanks Courtney. I appreciate the support and excitement! Ahh, those pistachio cookies are crinkle perfection, and I’m really excited to include them in the book!
Those savory cookies sound amazing! I’m always up for more bread too. Can’t wait to add another one of your books and recipes to my repertoire.
Thanks Katy! The bread chapter is a big one. I’m working my way through it!
Why do so publishers demand so much unnecessary work for a new cookbook?! I would pay $$$ for a physical cookbook collection of all your most popular recipes from the website alone instead of having to print each one myself! I hope some day they learn that it’s *good* recipes that sell cookbooks, not new exclusive ones.
Thanks JoAnna! It’s fun to create new recipes, and I’m making sure to include some website favorites as well. Can’t write a book without them!
Would love to taste the pistachio crinkle cookies especially, but the crumb cake cookies too!
Favorites!!
I don’t know if I even like the idea of a savory cookie but when you describe it as perfect with wine, cheese, and charcuterie… Well now I have to eat it
Right?! It’s been one of my recent favorites out of the new recipes so far in the manuscript!
Curious about the savory cookies. Definitely looking forward to trying them. I’d love it if you’d give us a challah recipe. I can’t find a great one and I am confident you’d be the woman for the job!
Hi Lori, thank you! I have tried and loved the challah from Tori Avey: https://toriavey.com/challah-bread-part-1-the-blessing-and-the-dough/
Wow! I do 3 cookies to send out for the holidays. 2 that never change because everyone loves them and the 3rd is always different. I wish the Coffee Crumb Cookie was inbound for this year! It looks so good, I think I can already taste it.
Love reading your cookbook progress emails! Can’t wait to get my hands on it in 2025!
Yay! Thanks Maggie!
You’re write up your cookbook testing is so exciting to see. The cookie recipes look so tempting and I’m most excited to see what you have coming in the savory section!
Thanks Judy. There will be savory recipes sprinkled all throughout the book. They have been my favorites to develop.
Any chance that you could include a great recipe for chocolate mint crinkles? Stonewall Kitchen used to have a mix for them at holiday time; the mix had super tiny bits of soft white mint —so tiny you didn’t even notice them – that made the peppermint pop. They were not bits of hard peppermint candy. I don’t know what they were – maybe something they made just for that purpose? My family loved those cookies but they have not been sold for the last two or three years. I figure if anyone could come up with a good substitute recipe, it would be you! Thanks for reading!
Those sound delicious! I wonder if they were like Andes mints, but much smaller and perhaps an off-brand or something? Something like that would be tasty in these chocolate crinkles.
Can we just preorder NOW!!!!
Love the excitement!! Yay!!
I’m quite excited about your new cookbook! I cannot wait to make the chocolate cherry cookies & crumb cake style cookies. But they ALL look fabulous! I LVE your recipes!!
Thanks Carrie! The crumb cake cookies were gobbled up. The chocolate cherry ones too. Honestly, they all were. I’m loving this cookies chapter!
Hi, Sally. I am looking forward to the Pistachio Crinkles! Not only are they so pretty, but the anticipation of melt-in-your-mouth makes me excited to try them when your book comes out! Congrats on all your success!
They are so chewy, so crinkly, and so tender. I’m excited about them!
I cant wait to buy!!! Is there a recipe that contains eggnog? Or decorated swiss rolls?
I don’t have plans for either in the book, but on my website, I do have these eggnog cookies and this chocolate cake roll, which you can make into mini chocolate cake rolls like the packaged Swiss Roll Cakes!
Take your time, Sally, you’ve given us so many delicious recipes to tide us over until your cookbook comes out! Thanks for the fun preview! Going to bake your Lemon Crinkle Cookies now.
Thank you Laurie!
Shut up and take my money! Can’t wait for this cookbook!
Ha!! Can’t come soon enough!
Sally…love your recipes! Is there any chance your loyal readers can get an “advance” digital manuscript, either to help in testing or to be a part of my 2023 baking projects. Even a snapshot of recipes would be great as I can never make all of the recipes I want to make when I get a new book. Maybe an “installment” plan could be helpful in providing a section at a time for a fee.
In any case, super excited about your new book!
Best,
Hi Laura, what a fun and interesting idea! I think it would be great to do some sneak peek recipes, perhaps around pre-order time. Certainly some fun things to consider!
Looking forward to your biggest and best cookbook in 2025! Those Chocolate Peppermint Sandwich Cookies look irresistible!
Thank you very much, Christi!
Oh those crumb cake cookies look delicious! Looking forward to your new cookbook!
Definitely a crowd pleaser!
Oh my gosh!!! I am so dang excited, and happy to know I have something wonderful happening in 2025! The savory cookies sound phenomenal, and I’m pumped for the coffee cake cookies (the icing definitely helps with the ground beefiness, ha!).
Yay! Something to look forward to!
I love your Recipe Testing posts. It’s so fun to see what goes on behind-the-scenes – even the flops! – and how much work you put into each bake. It’s no wonder I always have such excellent success with your recipes. <3
Thank you Veronica! It’s fun to publish these posts.
They all look top notch!! If I had to pick one, maybe the cinnamon raisin bread!!! Can’t wait for the new cookbook!!!
It’s extra swirly, and lots of raisins. I’m excited about this one too!
Thanks for checking in Sally! I am already excited about your new cookbook and I’m proud of you for balancing everything to keep your sanity. I just made two batches of your cookies last night for a family reunion and I know they were a hit because everyone kept leaving with bags of leftovers. Thanks for always being such a wonderful source of help and inspiration!
Thank you Susan, I appreciate the kind words!!
Can’t wait for the chocolate marrischino and the savory cookies
Thanks, Cecilia!