Is it just us, or are cookies the ultimate treat? They can be sweet, they can be savory, or they can be simple enough to dunk (or daintily dip, pinky up!) in a cup of English breakfast. You can serve them at parties, you can pack them in a kid’s lunch, you can pile them high and soak them in a cold glass of local milk. Yes, we’re all in on cookies and know you will be, too. Just don’t forget to wipe up the crumbs, you monsters!
By Carol Diggs, Shea Gibbs, and Caite Hamilton
LITTLE GEM
Jon LaPanta always got something sweet after dinner when he was a boy, and when his parents opened Baggby’s—the Downtown Mall sandwich shop he still runs—they wanted their patrons to get the same. Their solution was a tiny chocolate chip cookie in every bag.
Impossibly moist and buttery, the tiny cookie has become a Baggby’s signature during the lunch joint’s remarkable 28-year run. The secret to the cookie’s success? LaPanta says it’s the original recipe his mom Ann used, which calls for breaking the sugar down before whipping it with real butter and adding all-purpose flour and chocolate.
“Mrs. Fields has a similar recipe, but my mom was making them back in the ’60s,” LaPanta says.
Every morning, LaPanta and his team make a big batch of dough before eyeballing two sets of raw cookie balls—one for the large choco-chippers available at the counter and the other for their tiny counterparts. They never use a scoop, which gives the sweet biscuits their endearing non-uniform shape.
The Baggby’s bakers toss off a few trays at 350 degrees, then monitor sales to see when they need to fire up more fresh. They never want to sell day-olds, LaPanta says, so they make sure they don’t make too many. During a typical four-hour lunch rush over the past few years, Baggby’s has gone through nearly 50 pounds of cookie dough.
“People come up to the counter and ask, ‘Can I buy the little cookies?’” LaPanta says. The answer? Yes, but not until after they make sure they have enough for every order.
So yeah, Baggby’s little cookies are delicious. But with all that butter, sugar, and chocolate, how bad are they for you? “I’ve been eating them hot off the pan every morning since 1994, so there must be something to them,” LaPanta says.—SG
THE KEEVILS RESURRECT A FAN FAVORITE
Fans of Harrison Keevil’s Brookville Restaurant might remember the bulky bacon chocolate chip cookies that became a staple on the comfort food spot’s dessert menu during its six-year Downtown Mall tenure. What they might not remember is that Jennifer Keevil, Harrison’s wife, was the one who developed the cookie’s original recipe.
“We were labeled as the pig restaurant, and we thought it would be funny,” she says. “They came out ooey, gooey, and delicious.”
Since closing Brookville in 2016, Keevil and Keevil operated an eponymous grocery and kitchen before launching a “digital food hall,” Multiverse Kitchens, last year. The online ordering portal and brick-and-mortar restaurant features nine brands with unique offerings. The Keevils launched one brand, Long Strange Chip, to immortalize their beloved Brookville cookie recipe.
Jennifer says the recipe’s unique in at least two ways. One, it contains no salt, a trendy darling of modern cookie-meisters. Two, it has an elevated baking powder to soda ratio, which gives the cookies their signature puffy appearance.
“Baking is a science, and you have to add things a certain way,” Keevil says. To that end, she beats the sugar and butter for an extended period, adds chocolate chips and her dry ingredients, spins the dough only another 15 to 30 seconds, then leaves it the heck alone. The final step keeps the gluten from overactivating.
In its current iteration, the old Brookville recipe is the starting point for five Long Strange Chip products: chocolate chip, chocolate chocolate chip, bacon chocolate chip, peanut butter pieces chocolate chip, and toffee chocolate chip. And each cookie is baked to order.
“We undercook them a smidge, and they’re still warm,” Keevil says.—SG
SIMPLE…AND SCRUMPTIOUS
Sometimes, in this world of too much, we crave simple. And for simple, you can’t beat shortbread: one part sugar, two parts butter, three parts flour.
While many cuisines—British, Danish, Dutch, French, Spanish, Greek, Middle Eastern, Indian, even Japanese—have their version of this basic biscuit, if it’s called shortbread, it’s Scottish. Ask Laura Allen, of Charlottesville-based Allen’s Scottish Shortbread: Since 2014, her family has relied on her immigrant grandmother’s recipe, handed down through generations of Glaswegians.
The story goes that Scottish shortbread developed from a French version brought over by the ill-fated (and half-French) Mary, Queen of Scots. The name comes from its texture—“short,” or crumbly, because of the high fat content (twice as much butter as sugar). And butter is the clue to shortbread’s distinctive rich, melting mouth feel.
Allen’s shortbread is particularly luscious. Laura’s husband Anwar, the chief baker (once he’d been initiated by grandmother Allen), will reveal they use a portion of rice flour, for texture. But the real mysteries—what kind(s) of flour? Sifted how many times? What kind of butter? Granulated or powdered sugar, or both? A touch of salt? How long and at what stage should the dough be chilled?—are jealously guarded.
While the recipe is hallowed, the Allens have developed a range of flavors keyed to a traditional shortbread partner: a good, bracing cup of tea. From a family connection with John Harney, founder of Harney & Sons Fine Teas, the Allens began partnering with John’s grandson Emeric in 2019 to use the brand’s special blends in their shortbread. Anwar says the Earl Grey, lavender, cinnamon spice and Meyer lemon varieties are particularly popular; Laura says new flavors are in the works, but they are (no surprise) “a secret.”
The couple is committed to keeping Allen’s Scottish Shortbread a “gourmet, artisan product” made by hand in small batches. While Whole Foods and Wegmans carry the brand, you’re also likely to find it in specialty retailers and gourmet shops like Foods of All Nations, Shenandoah Joe’s, Kindness Cafe, The Happy Cook, Mona Lisa Pasta, Market Street Market—and online.
Laura, who grew up with Beatrix Potter and Angelina Ballerina (which inspired their packaging’s watercolor illustrations of the Allen rabbit family), sees a shortbread treat as a moment of ease and enjoyment, a little bit of childhood returned. Their customers seem to agree, whether they’re sipping tea, coffee (“especially good with the traditional holiday spice and pumpkin spice flavors,” says Laura), wine, Champagne, or even—appropriately—a good Scotch.
What’s the Allens’ secret ingredient? “I think it’s love,” Laura says, “just like my grandmother’s.”—CD
DOUGH, BABY
Wouldn’t it be great if there was one dough that could do double, triple, even quadruple duty when it came to making cookies? Albemarle Baking Company’s Gerry Newman did us a solid, sharing a dough recipe that just requires a few simple tweaks depending on what kind of cookie you’re craving. Try it out (and don’t forget to share).—CH
Cookie dough
8.5 oz. butter (room temp) 8.5 ounce
10.25 oz. sugar
2 eggs (room temp)
.25 oz. vanilla
10.25 oz. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
Cream the butter and sugar, then add eggs one at a time, scraping well between additions. Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt, and add to mix until well incorporated. Rest mixture in fridge for at least one hour. Scoop and bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes.
Mix it up
- Roll scooped dough in a mix of 1 pound granulated sugar and 5 tablespoons cinnamon for snickerdoodles.
- Add a 12-ounce bag of chocolate chips for chocolate chip cookies.
- Add 5 ounces of rolled oats and 8 ounces raisins for oatmeal raisin cookies.
- Omit the vanilla and add the zest of one lemon. When cookies come out of the oven, make a glaze of the juice of the lemon and powdered sugar, adjusting to the right thickness, and glaze the warm cookies.