Margaret Chen 
Margaret Chen · May 31, 2026
Brown Butter Cardamom Cookies: The Recipe I Make When I Want to Sound Like a Professional Baker I’ll never forget the moment my friend Sarah pulled me into the kitchen at my dinner party five years ago and demanded to know where I’d ordered the cookies from. “These are impossibly good,” she said, holding up … Read more
Margaret Chen · May 29, 2026
National Cookies of the World: The Most Iconic Cookie From 20 Countries (I’ve Made Them All) Europe’s Most Iconic National Cookies Scotland: Shortbread Scottish shortbread dates to the 12th century and uses a precise 3:1:2 ratio of butter, sugar, and flour. Rice flour or cornstarch creates the signature crumbly, melt-in-your-mouth texture. Add 25% cornstarch for … Read more
Margaret Chen · May 28, 2026
Orange Cookies: 5 Internationally-Inspired Recipes You Won’t Find in a Standard Roundup I spent the better part of last winter diving deep into orange cookie recipes—not just any orange cookies, but the kind that make people pause mid-bite and ask, “What is that flavor?” The kind that linger on your palate long after the cookie … Read more
Margaret Chen · May 26, 2026
The Bakery Cookie That Changed Everything It was a Tuesday afternoon in Mumbai, 2019, when I first bit into these golden, crumbly little rounds at a neighborhood bakery near my hotel. The texture was nothing like the soft, cakey American coconut cookies I’d been baking for years. These were crispy, almost sandy, with a delicate … Read more
Margaret Chen · May 25, 2026
I still remember the exact moment I fell in love with Moroccan orange cookies. It was a Tuesday afternoon in my kitchen—the kind of day when I’d been testing three different shortbread recipes and felt frankly exhausted by butter and sugar. A friend had just returned from Marrakech and handed me a small paper bag … Read more
Margaret Chen · May 23, 2026
I still remember sitting on my kitchen floor in December 2018, surrounded by twelve cracked, lopsided, hollow shells that were supposed to be French macarons. I had followed every online tutorial I could find. My feet were wrong. My shells had craters. My filling oozed out sideways. That was batch number three, and I genuinely … Read more
Margaret Chen · May 22, 2026
The first time I made a homemade Oreo cookies recipe from scratch was the winter of 2018, right before the holidays. I had confidently promised my daughter Emma a “better than the blue package” cookie, and what came out of my oven that first evening was… not that. The cookies spread, tasted like sad chocolate … Read more
Margaret Chen · May 20, 2026
Three Valentine’s Days ago, I served a platter of heart cookies at my daughter’s school party that genuinely stopped parents in their tracks. Several people asked which bakery made them. The honest answer? I decorated every single one using nothing but a zip-lock bag and royal icing I whipped up in under ten minutes. That … Read more
Margaret Chen · May 18, 2026
The first time I developed a serious pumpkin spice cookies recipe fall bakers would actually come back to, it was October 2019. I had a kitchen counter full of failed batches and a husband who politely described my third attempt as “interesting.” The problem? Pumpkin is roughly 90% water. That moisture content wrecks havoc on … Read more
Margaret Chen · May 17, 2026
The year I perfected my halloween spider cookies recipe, my neighbor’s seven-year-old screamed and dropped her candy bag. I considered that a win. These aren’t the sad, droopy spider cookies you see on grocery store shelves every October — the ones with misaligned pretzel legs and frosting that tastes like sweetened chalk. Mine are legitimately … Read more
