Holiday Baking

No Cookie Plate Is Complete Without Gingersnaps

The kind that are super crisp are best

There are basically two types of cookies: drop cookies and refrigerator cookies. Drop cookies are usually made just before baking. In fact, they can (and should) be made as the oven is preheating. They are soft, buttery, sweet, and, because they have height, perfect for containing other ingredients. The chocolate chip is the paradigm of drop cookies.

To adjust any drop cookie recipe to your personal taste, remember this: Butter makes cookies tender, flour makes them cakey, shorter cooking times (within reason, of course) produce chewier cookies, and longer ones make them crispier.

Refrigerator cookies — also called rolled cookies, because they can be rolled out and cut with a lightly floured cookie cutter (or that old standby, a glass) — must be made in advance. This can be an advantage, because you can make the dough days ahead and bake them whenever you get the urge (it’s a disadvantage when you don’t have the dough but you want cookies, like right now). You can also freeze the dough, and need not defrost it before baking, as long as you’re happy to slice it instead of rolling and cutting it into shapes.