Apparently, nothing soothes the soul quite like a cookie.
According to a recently released report by TOP Data, cookie consumption in America has increased 25% this year. Translation: one in five of us currently consumes three or more cookies a day.
And we’ve always known you, dear readers, to be above average, evidenced by searches for “cookies” on our site increasing exponentially during the last long nine months. So while the satisfying sugar rush that comes from demolishing a few cookies can’t change our circumstances, it can bring a little short-lived comfort. Should you be seeking to sate the cookie voyeur in you, below are the cookie recipes that we’ve seen more folks searching, for, clicking on, and printing out than any others this last year…
1. Safe-to-eat chocolate chip cookie dough
Actually, the most popular cookie recipe on our site isn’t a cookie recipe. It’s a chocolate chip cookie dough recipe that’s safe to eat thanks to a couple of tweaks to ensure no potentially pathogenic cooties linger.
2. Chocolate chip cookies
We consider David Leite’s Chocolate Chip Cookies to be the ultimate cookie fix. Inspired by something that Jacques Torres created, these boast a nuanced butteriness thanks to the cookie dough aging–that’s right, aging–in the fridge before baking.
And if that’s too long to wait for your indulgence, a lot of you have been clicking on our whole-wheat chocolate chip cookies, which bring a hearty nuttiness along with a marginal healthiness to your indulgence.
There are also soft chocolate chip cookies and just about every other chocolate chip cookie incarnation you can imagine. And, for those of you hunkering down alone, we even have a small batch chocolate chip cookies recipe.
3. Peanut butter cookies
These old-fashioned peanut butter cookies bring us straight back to after school snacks. They’re crisp at the edges, wonderfully chewy inside, peanutty through and through, and one of the recipes you’ve been clicking on the most.
Not far behind in the rankings, there’s our slightly spiffed-up version of the classic peanut blossoms cookies with the Hershey’s Kiss—or rather, whatever your chocolate of choice—plunked atop. And because partisan peanut butter cookie devotion is real, we also have crisp peanut butter cookies, soft peanut butter cookies, even made with bacon fat.
4. Oatmeal cookies
Let’s be straight about one thing. We’re talking oatmeal cookies. Not necessarily oatmeal raisin cookies. (As the meme goes, “oatmeal cookies with raisins instead of chocolate chips are the reason some of us have trust issues.”) We’ll let you add your own stir-ins, whether raisins or otherwise, to our basic but not boring oatmeal cookies. Think of making them as sorta like one of those Choose Your Own Adventure Books.
On the topic of stir-ins, you simply have to try the Compost Cookies from Milk Bar Bakery sensation Christina Tosi. They include things you probably already have around the kitchen that are about to go to waste, including coffee grounds, the crumbs in the bottom of the bag of potato chips, and those crushed pretzels alos lingering at the bottom of the bake. Think of them as helping you not waste food.
We’d also be remiss to not the next most popular oatmeal cookie recipe on our site. It’s definitely not your classic oatmeal cookie. Rather, it’s made in part with ground oats for a subtly nutty taste and pleasantly crumbly texture and has been around way before oat flour became trendy. Yes, it’s the stuff of urban legends, the Neiman Marcus Cookie recipe. We can’t vouch for the story behind the recipe. But we do swear by the recipe.
5. Shortbread Cookies
This category of cookies closely follows oatmeal cookies in terms of interest. Understandably. It’s a classic. Few ingredients. Little fuss. Simple pleasure. Whether you prefer classic shortbread cookies or something a little innovative, such as our perennially popular pistachio shortbread flecked with nubbins of nuttiness.
6. Other cookies
The report goes on to list other popular cookies throughout the states, including sugar cookies, butter cookies, snickerdoodles, macaroons, and biscotti. And then there are ones that deserve a category of their own, according to how many of you are making them, include the still-trendy Confetti Cookies and the ever-popular Homemade Milano Cookies.
A word on sugar consumption
If you’ve been finding yourself reaching for a fourth or fifth cookie to get the same elation you did with your third cookie a month or so ago, it’s not your imagination. Sugar triggers the same dopamine release as drugs (or, for that matter, seeing your number of Instagram followers surge). As happens with any addictive substance, your body builds up a tolerance, requiring more and more of the substance to satiate your craving. So if you encounter that tricky maybe-I’ll-just-have-one-more-cookie situation, you may want to consider baking up a batch, saving a few for yourself so you get fix, and then dropping the rest off on the porches of friends and family. Delivers you out of temptation.
