The Cookie That Changed My Life by Nancy Silverton, : Carolynn Carreno

The eagerly anticipated baking bible from America’s most respected authority: 100+ recipes for cookies, cakes, breads, breakfast pastries, and much more.

“Nancy Silverton baked a brioche so perfect that it brought Julia Child to tears…Nancy showed us how to strip away the extras and spotlight the essentials. She’s still doing that and we’re all still learning from her.” —Dorie Greenspan, author of Dorie’s Cookies

Nancy Silverton made her reputation as the original pastry chef for Wolfgang Puck’s restaurant Spago. Biting into a particularly delicious peanut butter cookie one day, she and had an epiphany: every single thing we bake should taste this good. And so she decided to return to her roots, and set to work perfecting the rest of the American baking canon.

From Lattice-Topped Apple Pie to Carrot Cake with Brown Butter Cream Cheese Frosting (the secret? Carrot puree) to Cornbread (is it too much to ask that it actually taste like corn?), she shares recipes for the platonic ideals of our most beloved baked goods.

Alongside the classics—Lemon Bars, Key Lime Pie, Layered Buttermilk Biscuits—Silverton includes a handful of her own inventions: Double-Decker Chocolate Cookies (double the fun!), Iced Raisin Bars (a better fig newton), and Chocolate Brandy Cake (chocolate and brandy!)—all sure to become future classics. With more than a hundred perfected recipes, The Cookie That Changed My Life is a veritable encyclopedia of the very best things to bake.

NANCY SILVERTON is the co-owner of Osteria Mozza, Pizzeria Mozza, Chi Spacca, and Mozza2Go, in Los Angeles and Newport Beach, California. She is the founder of the La Brea Bakery and the only chef ever to be awarded both the Outstanding Chef and Outstanding Pastry Chef awards from the James Beard Foundation. CAROLYNN CARREÑO is a James Beard Award-winning journalist, the author of Bowls of Plenty, and the coauthor of many other cookbooks.

Author Residence: Los Angeles, CA

Author Hometown: Los Angeles, CA