Cookies & Bars

Of all the hundreds (thousands, millions!) of cookie recipes, you’d be hard-pressed to find many that don’t contain vanilla extract. After all, vanilla’s complex notes are perfect for heightening so many other, bolder flavors in cookies—chocolate, fruits, nuts, spices, booze. But featuring vanilla as the star flavor can be a challenge: the small surface area of cookies and the high heat required to bake them often cause the vanilla flavor to bake off. For cookies with big vanilla impact, pull out the big guns—premium extracts and bean pastes—and use both in a single recipe. And sandwiching a creamy vanilla bean filling between those cookies doesn’t hurt, either.