Vaughn Vreeland Transcript
Jessie Sheehan:
Hi, peeps. You're listening to She's My Cherry Pie, the baking podcast from The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network. I'm your host, Jessie Sheehan. I'm a baker, recipe developer, and author of four baking books, including “Salty, Cheesy, Herby, Crispy Snackable Bakes.” On each episode, I hang out with the sweetest bakers around and take a deep dive into their signature bakes.
Today, we're airing a special midweek episode for you with a very special guest, Vaughn Vreeland. Vaughn is a writer, recipe creator, and video host for New York Times Cooking. You probably saw that it's officially Cookie Week at the Times, the annual holiday event beloved by home bakers. Vaughn and his team just dropped seven new holiday cookie recipes, and Vaughn joins me to talk about leading the project this year. He dishes through the editorial process for selecting the cookies and how he came up with his contribution, the Popcorn Bucket Cookies. Yum. Vaughn is also the co-author of the new book “Cookies: The Best Recipes for the Perfect Anytime Treat.” The book features 100 Time-tested recipes and expert guidance from trusted New York Times cooking contributors, including a few She's My Cherry Pie guests: Melissa Clark, Dorie Greenspan, Yewande Komolafe, Samantha Seneviratne, and, of course, Vaughn. In this episode, Vaughn and I talk chewy, crispy, cakey, chocolatey, and fruity, buttery goodness in every form. Plus, he dives into a few of his favorites from the book and walks me through the recipe for his Chewy Brownie Cookies, a recipe he labored over for four months until he got it just right. You should picture a cookie for brownie lovers, lovers of middle and edge pieces. Oh, and did I mention he sprinkles the flaky sea salt onto this cookie mid-bake, so it sticks but does not melt? Genius tip. I loved chatting with Vaughn about hanging out with his grandmother, Nanny, over homemade cookies and dip milk. Yep, dip milk is a thing, and baking Thanksgiving pies with her in August to be stored in her chest freezer, no less. And about seven-year-old Vaughn's Saturday morning baking sessions that resulted in monstrosities that vaguely resembled something he'd seen on Food Network the night before. So much good stuff in this episode, so stay tuned for our convo. You can find today's recipe at cherrybombe.substack.com.
Peeps, if you want more Vaughn in your life, join our Bombesquad member meeting today, December 2nd. We're hosting a virtual cookie swap at 3:00 PM Eastern Standard Time on Zoom with three fantastic cookbook authors and cookie authorities: Kat Lieu, Sarah Kieffer, and Vaughn Vreeland. Our Bombesquad host, Donna Yen, will talk to them about their holiday bakes, cookie trends, and all the tips and tricks we can squeeze in. Cherry Bombe's monthly virtual meetings are open to official Bombesquad members and paid Substack subscribers. If that's you, check your email for the registration link. If you'd like to join us, there's still time to become a subscriber at cherrybombe.substack.com. And don't worry if you can't make it to the meeting, we'll share the recording with members afterward.
Today's episode is presented by Diamond of California Nuts, the century-old nut brand you know and love. As we're gearing up for holiday baking season, my favorite season, make sure you're stocked up on all the baking nuts you'll need. And with Diamond, you know you're getting guaranteed fresh quality. You can really taste the difference. Diamond has us covered with all the nuts, whole, chopped, sliced, and even in shell too, if you're ever in the mood to crack some walnuts. Hey, maybe you have a nutcracker. I'll go with the chopped walnuts, which I put in my crazy delicious Chocolate Marshmallow Walnut Fudge. The pecans are a must in my Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie, and I also love using them to make candied nuts for holiday gifting. That's when I want to be using the best ingredients I can find, so when you're at the grocery store, look for the nuts in the white bag with the red Diamond logo in the baking aisle. That's your sign you're getting premium quality nuts that bakers have trusted for generations. Visit diamondnuts.com to find a store nearest you and to explore their fan favorite recipes like Walnut Butter Cookies. Yum. Happy baking.
Let's chat with today's guest. Vaughn, so excited to have you on She's My Cherry Pie and to talk Chewy Brownie Cookies with you and so much more.
Vaughn Vreeland:
Oh, thank you so much for having me. Can I just say, I feel like every time I see you, which is usually at a book launch or something, I'm like gravitating? I'm like, "I just need to be in your orbit." And it's so fun to actually get some one-on-one time with you.
Jessie Sheehan:
I'm so excited. You have been baking since you were like seven years old. On Saturday mornings, you often surprised your mom with one of your bakes. Can you tell us about said bakes?
Vaughn Vreeland:
Oh, yeah. I mean, usually they were from a box. I grew up loving Ina and loving Martha, but I also really loved Sandra Lee, and I still do. I think she's an icon. I loved that just kind of like, "Put lipstick on a pig" kind of vibe where you just take a box mix and add some sour cream to it and then you have like this whole new thing that like doesn't really taste that much different, but it is.
I always grew up with art as very central to who I was. I loved painting, I loved drawing, so this was just another extension of that because I would always add like lots of food coloring to it, and I would love decorating it. So, I think cakes were kind of the first love there. And then once I got more comfortable with that, I think I moved into the homemade cookie recipe, the Nestlé Toll House type thing.
Jessie Sheehan:
On this day, I'm not missing those.
Vaughn Vreeland:
Yeah. Very simple. But then I think that that also just ignited this, "Oh my gosh, like look at the transformation that happens before my eyes.” I love taking these raw ingredients and like making something very beautiful out of them.
Jessie Sheehan:
Were these bakes that you were doing for your mom or family on these Saturday mornings, were those sort of your first memories of baking, or did you have even earlier ones?
Vaughn Vreeland:
I think that those would be my first ones where I was able to fly on my own.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes.
Vaughn Vreeland:
I was given a lot of agency and freedom, which was really nice, and I was encouraged to not be afraid to make mistakes in the kitchen.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes, which is great.
Vaughn Vreeland:
I think probably the earliest memories I have baking would be like at the holidays with my grandma, Nanny. We would be making, you know those haystacks, which is the butterscotch chips and the…?
Jessie Sheehan:
Cornflakes or like the-
Vaughn Vreeland:
They're like chow mein noodles.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes, the chow mein noodles.
Vaughn Vreeland:
Yeah, we'd use the chow mein noodles, and I would be like, "This is so fun." So things like that. We did a lot of candy. We did a lot of candy. And then also obviously cookies and things like that. One of the first things I ever made with her, I remember, was peach ice cream. One of her brothers lived in Georgia, he would always bring up peaches, I think probably in like August every year, like the really ripe Georgia peaches and she would blanch them, slice them, freeze them, and then we would make peach ice cream throughout the entire year.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, my gosh, peach ice cream is like one of my favorites.
Vaughn Vreeland:
Oh, same.
Jessie Sheehan:
It's so good.
Vaughn Vreeland:
Same.
Jessie Sheehan:
We really cannot talk about little Vaughn or maybe any-aged Vaughn without talking about your grandmother, AKA Nanny. She was this really strong matriarch, huge influence to the point about being artistic, et cetera, really encouraged your imagination. I love this so much. Can you tell us about homemade cookies and dip milk that you ate with her? And I love that expression, dip milk so much. What would that cookie have been, or maybe there were several?
Vaughn Vreeland:
Oh, I mean, it spanned from Oreos to red velvet cookies that she would make. I really loved-
Jessie Sheehan:
Like with a cream cheese situation or just…?
Vaughn Vreeland:
It was like a white chocolate chip, red velvet type situation. It was so good. And I remember writing about it one time where I remember it was like a means for us to like share in that 3:00 glass of Chardonnay and “General Hospital.” And that was like her daily ritual. And I felt like when I was at her house, I needed my daily ritual, so it was always centered around a cookie and dip milk.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that.
Vaughn Vreeland:
And I always called it that.
Jessie Sheehan:
Dip milk, mhm, Vaughn.
Vaughn Vreeland:
And I still do call it that today, even though...
Jessie Sheehan:
You have to write about dip milk.
Vaughn Vreeland:
I do need to-
Jessie Sheehan:
Have you written?
Vaughn Vreeland:
No.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, my God.
Vaughn Vreeland:
I need to write about dip milk, though.
Jessie Sheehan:
You need to write about dip milk. Dip milk is amazing.
Vaughn Vreeland:
I think it could be, you and I could market it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Can we do dip milk?
Vaughn Vreeland:
Yeah, I think that would be fun.
Jessie Sheehan:
Tell us about getting ready for Thanksgiving in August with Nanny.
Vaughn Vreeland:
Oh, my God. I remember we were going to a play of some sort at the Durham Performing Arts Center. My grandma's from Durham, and we went back to her house after to drop her off, and we had like her leftovers from dinner. We see all of these casseroles in the refrigerator and it was August. It legitimately was August. And my mom goes like, "Mama, what are these?" And she's like, "Oh, honey, they're for Thanksgiving." And we were like, "What? But Nanny, it's August." And I mean, she thankfully, mentally always all there, so she was sharp as a tack.
She just decided, like, "Hey, I'm tired of stressing out the week of Thanksgiving. I'm going to start making this stuff and freezing it and then just baking it off because so many..." I think that this is a very Southern thing, but it's also a product of her time too, like casseroles. So many casseroles.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, I love a casserole.
Vaughn Vreeland:
I love a casserole, too. And so they're so easy to make and freeze and then bake off. That meant more time for her on the day of Thanksgiving to tend to other people. She was like the ultimate caregiver, the ultimate matriarch, the ultimate host, but also more time for her to drink Chardonnay.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, oh well, I love it.
Vaughn Vreeland:
And so that's why, even to this day, now I'm like, "Okay, well, what can I do a few days before Thanksgiving and freeze and then just...?"
Jessie Sheehan:
I don't want to scare you, but I literally am Nanny because I'm like obsessed with my freezer. My husband is just like, "What is that?" I'm like, "Oh, in a month we're having so and so over for dinner, that's what we're going to..." He's just like, "You're an insane person." I'm like, "It makes me feel better."
Vaughn Vreeland:
I loved it so much. I love it so much and sometimes, when you freeze something and then reheat it, it's better.
Jessie Sheehan:
A 100%.
Vaughn Vreeland:
There are certain recipes where that just is true.
Jessie Sheehan:
I couldn't agree with you more.
Vaughn Vreeland:
And I think that if you've got the space, she had like four freezers.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, yeah.
Vaughn Vreeland:
I mean, her house was the size of my apartment basically, which is tiny, but they made space outside for chest freezers and stuff because she was always hosting people. I mean, that's how she showed love. And I think that that's ultimately what instilled in me this love of cooking and especially baking, because I feel like baking is so shareable, you know?
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes, totally. I think it is very fair to say that your family was into food, like that was big. And your mom and your grandmother, both great cooks and bakers.
Vaughn Vreeland:
Fantastic.
Jessie Sheehan:
But for you, was it just baking? Were you an equal opportunity food peep?
Vaughn Vreeland:
I was equal opportunity. I think baking-
Jessie Sheehan:
You loved cooking as much as baking?
Vaughn Vreeland:
Yes. I think that baking allowed me to really tap into that artistic side, but I think that cooking food allowed me to experience changes in real time, like adding more... I used to make macaroni and cheese a lot.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yum.
Vaughn Vreeland:
And I was one of those-
Jessie Sheehan:
From scratch?
Vaughn Vreeland:
Yes, actually. Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay, because I also love the box. I'm just going to come out and say it.
Vaughn Vreeland:
I love a box, too. I will do a box and add kale and rotisserie chicken to it and act like I have a complete meal and love it. But I would make it homemade and I would try my hand at making a Béchamel and the more I learned about it, the more I was able to say like, "Okay, I got to take my time. I have to add my milk slower." I would watch these people on, especially Food Network and Emeril and things like that, making these things, and I was just so intrigued with it, and I was also such a ham and kind of in my own little world that I was also acting like I had my own cooking show, which I thought was such a unique experience. And then the more I meet people in food media, especially gays in food media, we were all like that.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, hilarious. I can totally relate to that.
Vaughn Vreeland:
I would always say, "Isn't that fabulous?" Just that complete like, "Oh darling, isn't that fabulous?"
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that so much.
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I know Food Network had a special place in your heart. Other things, or was that sort of the only game in town when you were little or younger?
Vaughn Vreeland:
Oh, I mean, everything. I loved obviously my Disney Channel and my Nickelodeon and things like that, but Food Network also was something that I shared in with my mom a lot, because she, still to this day, watches it all the time and I think it made me feel, you know, when you're a kid, you're just so ready to grow up?
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Vaughn Vreeland:
It helped me feel grown up, like watching Giada and everybody after school.
Jessie Sheehan:
I want to talk about your sort of introduction to food professionally. You got into food and cooking and also video during this post-college stint, teaching English in Thailand. It inspired your move to New York to pursue food kind of, I think, through a media lens, is that fair?
Vaughn Vreeland:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Can you tell us, I think, it was a promotional video that you made?
Vaughn Vreeland:
Yes. I applied for this program in Thailand, teaching English. And when I was over there, I ended up saying, like, "Hey, I can also..." I studied film in college. I love filming and editing my own videos. And it was like 2015, it was when, I think, there was a big cultural shift too between that classic production, where you have a team of 10 producers and then you have the videographers and the editors, to condensing that down into one person, right?
Social media was taking off in video as well, so all these people were basically at the behest of these producer/editor, single-stack producers is what we call them. And so I was like, "Hey, I would love to film around the country." And I found myself really gravitating toward the food, the markets. That was my way of actually engaging the most with the culture was through food.
And I'm also a big fan of languages. I have a very linguistic brain. I was also a French major in college. So, when I was over there, that's how I would retain the language, would be through the food. And obviously, there are a lot of food phrases, but even at the markets, that's when you kind of get into more conversation with people. It really helped me engage and connect with folks while I was there. And I absolutely love, love Thailand. I love it. And the people are fantastic and the food is amazing.
I ended up doing this kind of promotional video while I was there. And when I came back, I was like, "That was so fun. I really love this docu-style food thing." And it was the same time, when I got back, “Chef's Table” came out. And I was like, "That is what I want to do. I think that this is gorgeous. I want to be in this world." And I had worked at a bakery in North Carolina, mainly doing front of house stuff.
Jessie Sheehan:
What was it called, like Macaron Madness or something?
Vaughn Vreeland:
That's not what it was called. That was my blog that I had called-
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, what was the place called?
Vaughn Vreeland:
It was called Lucettegrace, was the place I worked, but that is so... I am both... I'm at one, so impressed and so scared that you found my blog spot from-
Jessie Sheehan:
Vaughn, you don't even know.
Vaughn Vreeland:
I had Macaron Memoirs from when I was-
Jessie Sheehan:
Memoirs.
Vaughn Vreeland:
... abroad in France. And then I had this one that was such a stupid pun, but Can't Be Tied Down when I was in Thailand.
Jessie Sheehan:
Funny.
Vaughn Vreeland:
I know. Yeah, please take whatever.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love it.
Vaughn Vreeland:
But I wrote a lot about... And the French culture obviously has such a big influence on me too. And I worked at this bakery that was largely French-influenced in downtown Raleigh. I was like, "I just love being in this world. I love front of house. I love back of house. I love filming it." And so I just moved up to New York, didn't have a job, and kind of just hit the pavement when I got up here.
Jessie Sheehan:
You ended up at BuzzFeed Tasty. Incredible.
Vaughn Vreeland:
I did, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that you say you weren't formally trained. Like, your education was literally behind the camera, learning about food from watching people from there. Tell us about working at BuzzFeed. What year would this have been?
Vaughn Vreeland:
2017.
Jessie Sheehan:
So, was this hands and pans era?
Vaughn Vreeland:
Yeah, it was total hands and pans era.
Jessie Sheehan:
Wow.
Vaughn Vreeland:
So I got in right, I think, we're looking at the bell curve, we're right at the other edge of the crest, so it was like still extremely popular. My first video on Facebook had 35 million views or something crazy like that.
Jessie Sheehan:
Wow.
Vaughn Vreeland:
And I was like, "This is so cool." And I think it also maybe set me up for a little bit of failure later on down in my career, when I didn't get 35 million views on a video, but still it was really cool being in that world because I actually was living life as that full-stack producer that I was talking about. We were not only filming and editing our own videos, but we were also the hands working the pans and making the recipes, which a lot of people didn't realize. These 22 to 26-year-olds were coming up with recipes and then, which was really fun.
And then, I think, if I'm honest, once we realized that folks were actually making the recipes, really we got to kind of step the game up a little bit and hire a full culinary team and they did. And that's what also helped me kind of be a little bit more mindful and take a little bit more time. But when we started, we had to make two to three of those a week. We were actively testing this recipe, basically as we were filming it. And if there was like a big change that needed to happen, "Well, I'm not going to hit quota, so I don't know what to do." And it was a little bit of a tricky dance while we were there.
Jessie Sheehan:
Your next job was New York Times Cooking. Can you tell us, what's your job at New York Times Cooking? I feel like you might wear three hats?
Vaughn Vreeland:
Okay. Well, so this is a good kind of transition fully into this is I was a supervising producer and a lot of folks might not know this... A lot of folks didn't even know that I was on the production team, but if people did know that, they might not know that actually, a couple of months ago, I transitioned to just being a full-time writer and recipe developer.
Jessie Sheehan:
That's what I have writer, recipe creator, video host-
Vaughn Vreeland:
And host, yup.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah.
Vaughn Vreeland:
My title is like cooking writer, call it what you will, columnist, host, whatever. Basically, I am writing a newsletter every week and I am developing a certain number of recipes every month, and I'm hosting a video series. We're still in the beginning of the phases of figuring out what it looks like for me specifically, but I am now a full-time writer.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, that's what I thought. I had all these different labels and I was like, "Actually, I think this might be the most recent."
Vaughn Vreeland:
"What does this man do?"
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. "Who is he? Why is he even coming in here?" This year, you are producing the fantastic New York Times Cooking Cookie Week. What does that mean to produce it?
Vaughn Vreeland:
This was actually the first recipe that I ever developed for the New York Times.
Jessie Sheehan:
The Eggnog Snickerdoodles?
Vaughn Vreeland:
Was the Eggnog Snickerdoodle, and that was based off of a family recipe, which was so fun to be able to do that. As somebody who's been at the helm of Cookie Week since the beginning, even though my role has changed, I always want to stay integral to the projects that I have helped build. And so producing Cookie Week really does mean sitting in a room with the recipe team and the video team and deciding like, "Hey, this year, is there a theme we want to go with? Who are the folks that we want to work with?" And we get all the pitches, we look at them all together, we're in Photoshop trying to mock up faux cookie boxes with like, "Okay, so if we go with her short bread and his chewy ginger cookie, what do they look like together and how do we involve more like, 'We need more shapes, we need more color, we need more diversity of ingredients.'" And so that is kind of, we're in a room for an hour at a time over the course of a month and-
Jessie Sheehan:
And what month are we? How early are you starting?
Vaughn Vreeland:
This is May. This is May. We ask for pitches in June, and then I was developing my cookie in July, we filmed Cookie Week at the end of August. So, it's about a two, three month process, but it is so fun. It's very rewarding. And when we get those cookie tins that have all seven of them in there, it really is some interesting thing that I'm like putting on airs a little bit, but it really does choke me up a little bit because there's a lot of work that's gone into it, not only that year, but over the last six years that we've done it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Before we jump into your book, which I'm very excited to talk about, I just wanted to go through the cookies. First, can you tell us about Claire Saffitz, who was a guest on the pod a couple of times, about her Strawberry Almond Mortadella Cookie?
Vaughn Vreeland:
Jessie, I know it's a podcast, so it's not a visual medium, but I wish I could show... I'm going to show you, after this, this photo of Claire's cookie on top of a huge hunk of mortadella, and it is-
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, my God.
Vaughn Vreeland:
... a little trippy because you're like, "Whoa, that looks like cured meat."
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, my God.
Vaughn Vreeland:
We ended up making a few different versions of it where she added a little bit more freeze-dried strawberry powder to it.
Jessie Sheehan:
So, it'd be a little brighter, it wasn't quite so mortadella?
Vaughn Vreeland:
A little brighter, yeah, it was a pale pink at one point. It would be like a shortbread. It's a slice and bake, basically. It is chewier than a shortbread because she uses almond paste in it, which is such a lovely texture-
Jessie Sheehan:
Almond paste.
Vaughn Vreeland:
... when you kind of go in there, you think you're going to get this kind of buttery, crumbly shortbread and you kind of do, but then it also has this little bit of chew. The color comes from freeze-dried strawberries, and she uses macadamia nuts and pistachios, like they would do an actual mortadella with the pistachios. She rolls into logs, slices, and bakes them.
Jessie Sheehan:
Can I just say that mortadella is my favorite?
Vaughn Vreeland:
Mine, too. Mine, too.
Jessie Sheehan:
My literal favorite thing. Tell me about Dan "Grossy" Pelosi's Dark 'n' Stormys.
Vaughn Vreeland:
Oh, my gosh, this is maybe one... I mean, it's hard to pick favorites, but I am a chewy cookie fanatic, right? So, I love chewy cookies. This is his chewy ginger cookie that he puts chopped crystallized ginger in. It's beautifully infused with rum, and then it has this lime rum glaze on top. And so it's boozy but doesn't take it too far. It's a really lovely balance. Ginger cookies can sometimes be a bit saccharine. They can be a bit glowing, and that lime glaze cuts that sweetness really, really well. And that with the ginger is like, "Mm, perfect."
Jessie Sheehan:
Tell me about my other pal, Eric Kim's Mint Chocolate Chip Bark, which I have to say, Baskin-Robbins mint chocolate chip ice cream is literally my favorite ice cream.
Vaughn Vreeland:
That is, I think, what they literally based it off of, Jessie. I'm not kidding. I guess to preface to this year's kind of theme in the background, I don't know if we're calling it an official theme, but it was like, "But make it a cookie." It was like, "Take some of your favorite things and make it a cookie." So, Eric's was kind of based off of this like Baskin-Robbins mint chocolate chip ice cream, and he did this really cool cookie that, when I had it, I was like, "Oh, it reminds me of something." It's almost like if you had a pinole cookie, without the almond, but it's got that chew to it. It's like an egg-white-based cookie and then covered in a white chocolate, a minty white chocolate, with the chocolate chips on top. He cuts it like a peppermint bark, but it's got this cool little, almost like macaron cookie-
Jessie Sheehan:
Yum, yeah.
Vaughn Vreeland:
... down at the bottom that adds this extra layer of texture that's super delicious.
Jessie Sheehan:
But there's no green from that Baskin-Robbins?
Vaughn Vreeland:
This year, we actually were allowed to use food coloring, which is good. Yeah. So, it really does look like it.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love that.
Vaughn Vreeland:
And when you see it, you're instantly brought to that mint chocolate chip.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love this, "But make it a cookie." Does that mean that Claire loves Mortadella?
Vaughn Vreeland:
Yeah, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, I love that.
Vaughn Vreeland:
Now, thinking about that, I'm thinking back to the other pitches that folks had. I'm like, "Oh, wait, that must mean that they like X, Y, Z."
Jessie Sheehan:
Exactly, exactly. Tell us about Melissa's Vietnamese Coffee Brownies.
Vaughn Vreeland:
Oh, this one was so good. And I love that Melissa always plays with form, right? Melissa's written nine million cookbooks, and so at this point she's earned the right to be like, "Well, you wanted a cookie, I'm going to give you a brownie."
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, exactly.
Vaughn Vreeland:
But to me, they go hand in hand, and I would put them in the category of cookie, but they're a really dark chocolate, dense-type brownie that obviously has those lovely, lovely coffee notes. And you know when you add coffee to a chocolate dessert, it kind of amps up the chocolate flavor so you can actually taste the coffee, right? And then it's got these swirls of sweetened condensed milk throughout it, like a Vietnamese iced coffee, and they're really good.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, Melissa, so good. Sue's Payday Cookie.
Vaughn Vreeland:
Oh, my goodness. This was a cookie that I got to try when it was in development and me and Sam Seneviratne were with Sue that night that we went out to dinner, and we were like, "It's perfect, Sue." It's so wonderful. It looks like a Payday. I mean, it's in the shape of a traditional circular cookie, but looks like a Payday and it is just this gorgeously salt... It's like a peanut version of a pinole cookie, honestly. It's rolled in those toasted peanuts with flaky salt on top.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then finally, my beloved Sam, tell me about her Coconut Cake Cookies.
Vaughn Vreeland:
Oh, these are so good. I tried these and I was like, "This is such a wonderful cookie because it tastes of fresh coconut." It's not that fake desiccated coconut. It is covered in a bright pink coconut because it's supposed to harken those Hostess snowballs, which I honestly love.
Jessie Sheehan:
Me too.
Vaughn Vreeland:
But the cookie itself is chewy, almost shortbready in a way as well. Coconut cookie that is so fresh tasting, and I actually don't know if the recipe calls for it, but I think she uses coconut flour. There's something in there that just makes it taste so fresh. And it's almost like what you wish that Hostess snack would taste like when... Because I've had one recently, for research purposes, of course.
Jessie Sheehan:
Of course.
Vaughn Vreeland:
And I was like, "Hmm? This doesn't taste as good as it used to taste like after baseball practice growing up, but it's still good."
Jessie Sheehan:
Tell us about your Popcorn Bucket Cookies.
Vaughn Vreeland:
Yeah. This was based off of family movie night, which is one of my favorite things during the holidays. I love turning on either something like “Die Hard,” that my dad really wants to watch, that we consider a Christmas movie, or “The Sound of Music” or -
Jessie Sheehan:
“Home Alone?”
Vaughn Vreeland:
... “Christmas Vacation.” Yeah, “Home Alone,” “Home Alone.” My boyfriend's name is Kevin, so we can't watch “Home Alone” because he hates when they go, "Kevin!" Because he had to grow up his entire life with people saying that.
Jessie Sheehan:
Being teased, yeah.
Vaughn Vreeland:
But a lot of our best memories are kind of centered around popping on a movie, even if we've seen it a bajillion times, and then maybe playing Monopoly Deal or Codenames and just having a nice little family movie night. So, I decided that it would be so fun to just throw in a whole random slew of candy into this cookie. It's a pretty simple base, I use some chopped up Heath toffee, almost as a flavoring element, and it melts really nicely in the cookie itself. And then it just has whatever your favorite movie theater candy is in there.
On set, when we filmed it, I used peanut M&Ms, Butterfinger, Sour Patch Kids, Raisinets, the dark chocolate Raisinets, which are so good, and Kit Kat. I think there were Whoppers in there. It's so fun to just play with candy.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes.
Vaughn Vreeland:
And I think that this was one of those cookies that for me, developing Cookie Week cookies in the summertime, you can feel a little bit burnt out because you're also working on Thanksgiving stuff and maybe some other big fall baking projects at the same time. And you're like, "Oh." But this really reignited the fun in baking for me again, which was so necessary at the time. And I was able to tinker with it a little bit more once I got just the movie theater candy and I was like, "Well, I want a popcorn element to it." So, I brush it with butter and roll it in freshly popped popcorn, and then it bakes, and it looks fun. It just looks fun, and I love them.
Jessie Sheehan:
And also, that's my favorite part of a movie, is the buttered popcorn and maybe some M&Ms. I kind of like the mixture.
Vaughn Vreeland:
Oh, I love M&Ms.
Jessie Sheehan:
Or even a peanut M&M, so you have salty, sweet, and then you have your popcorn.
Vaughn Vreeland:
Putting the Sour Patch Kids in there sounds diabolical, but that hit of that citric acid or whatever they roll the Sour Patch Kids in, with the saltiness of the popcorn, and then maybe the sweetness from a Raisinet.
Jessie Sheehan:
I can't wait.
Vaughn Vreeland:
I mean, it's Flavor Town, U.S.A.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, my God. Hello?
Vaughn Vreeland:
It's so good.
Jessie Sheehan:
Hello?
Vaughn Vreeland:
It's so good.
Jessie Sheehan:
All right. Now, I cannot wait to talk about the book. Your first love is cookies. The first thing you ever developed, for New York Times Cooking, was your Eggnog Snickerdoodles, so it makes absolute sense that your first book is “Cookies.” But tell us about the book. You and I were talking before we started recording about how much I love the design. For those who have not opened the book and looked at it and lived with it, like I have, tell us what we'd find.
Vaughn Vreeland:
I'm very thankful because I got input into the design of this book. I told them, I was like, "Hey, I want the experience of opening this book to mimic the experience of baking and eating a cookie." To me, cookies are just as fun to make as they are to eat. I mean, maybe eating them is a little bit more fun. I think that there's so much joy in that experience and the joy that you feel in being able to share it with other people. And that is why, when we were having the design conversation, I think that making it bright, making it colorful, almost subverting people's expectations of what they might think a New York Times cookbook would look like or has looked like in the past, it was really fun to kind of diverge a little bit and be able to have these chapter openers that are like brat green. To me, that was just super important that you got as much out of reading it and experiencing it as you would like baking the actual cookies.
Jessie Sheehan:
It's so colorful. Obviously, there are a lot of cookie books. Was there talk about how... I mean, it can stand out because it's New York Times Cooking and it's Vaughn and both entities, so special. But was there talk about, "How will ours be different? How will this stand out and not be like, 'Oh, I have a cookie book already.'?"
Vaughn Vreeland:
Yeah, totally. I mean, I think that, honestly, some of my favorite cookbooks are cookie books. My pal Jesse over at BA has the most fantastic-
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, “Modern Cookies.” Incredible.
Vaughn Vreeland:
... those beautiful, so good. And I think that, yeah, there definitely was talk of how we make this feel different because you don't want to be just another...
Jessie Sheehan:
No.
Vaughn Vreeland:
I think, in food media, we are facing, especially with how social media is going to, a little bit of a saturation problem in some areas. So, it's like, "Okay, well, what's going to set us apart? Give the people what they want, but also what they don't know they want yet." And so I think that there is a really lovely mix in there of your classics, your 30-minute bakes, but then also your projects, too. And I think that it is a book that really does speak to everyone and it's not just aspirational baking. There is a lot of like really application-based like, "Oh, here is a no-bake chocolate peanut butter cookie that will take me five minutes to make." And I think that was also important for me too, as someone who started baking from those Nestlé Toll House recipes, that was a gateway, right? I think watching Sandra Lee was a gateway.
And though some people may turn their nose up at that, I know that I can never because that is where I just got my start, my love of doing this. And so, if I can have recipes that speak to different types of bakers out there that might be, "Hey, this is for an eight-year-old little boy in North Carolina who like really wants to start baking, but it also could be for a 32-year-old man in New York City who is just tired but really needs something chocolate."
Jessie Sheehan:
I get it. We're talking about the Chewy Brownie Cookies, and you have said that this doesn't happen very frequently, but you had to labor on this cookie for months.
Vaughn Vreeland:
Oh, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
And it's one of the few. What were you trying to accomplish that made it so tricky?
Vaughn Vreeland:
I wanted to make them easy, and for some reason, every time I would make them, they would look a little bit different. I knew that this recipe was going to be very special and I wanted it to be foolproof for everybody. I think, as you know, sometimes the simplest thing, the answer is right in front of my face, but why is it so hard to figure it out? I think, for me, writing a 100-word intro to something is way harder than writing a 5,000-word essay. I don't know why, but it was important to me that these achieve everything that I set out for them, and I would need to take a break from them too, which I think is why it also took me so long.
I was like, "Listen, we need a break, brownie cookies." But would return to them with fresh eyes, which I think is also-
Jessie Sheehan:
Also helpful.
Vaughn Vreeland:
... always important as a recipe developer, if you have the time to do it, return to it with fresh eyes and see like, "Hey, was I actually just laboring over this point needlessly or was this actually something that I could go ahead and change?" Yeah, I wanted them to be easy. They are a cookie that even if you don't have everything mised out, I think you could have them, from your flowers in your pantry to the cookies in your mouth, in about 45 minutes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Which is great.
Vaughn Vreeland:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
You say this is a cookie for brownie lovers. Corner brownie people are going to be happy, your middle brownie people are going to be happy. I love this, "Textural journey from soft and velvety middles to chewy edges. The perfect union of America's most popular desserts, brownies and cookies." The recipe is relatively simple, but also you say in the head note, "The only time-intensive step in the recipe is the beating the eggs and the sugar. You can't skip it, but that's it. If you can get through that, you're good." We're going to talk about this, but you have us bang the sheet on the counter midway through the bake because that's going to help us with creating fudgy cookies and also craggly-topped, and we're going to get into that when we talk about the recipe, but I just wanted to flag that because it's something you flag in the head note.
We're going to heat our oven to 350 degrees, and we're going to line... I'm sure a lot of this is like New York Times Cooking rules and regulations for how you write recipes, but I'm just going to ask you about it anyway. It says, "Line two large baking sheets." When the New York Times says, "Large," did they mean 18 by 13, so they mean standard?
Vaughn Vreeland:
Yeah, a half sheet.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep.
Vaughn Vreeland:
But it's funny because my oven in my apartment is a half oven.
Jessie Sheehan:
Right, right, right.
Vaughn Vreeland:
I can only bake on quarter sheet trays, and I got into a little bit of trouble with the Cookie Week cookie because I was like, "Well, I'm baking four or six sometimes on my quarter sheet, so double it for the half sheet, right?" But like, "No."
Jessie Sheehan:
No. Did they spread too much?
Vaughn Vreeland:
They spread too much.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, yeah, it's so hard. I know.
Vaughn Vreeland:
And so I sometimes get in trouble with that kind of stuff.
Jessie Sheehan:
It's so hard, yeah.
Vaughn Vreeland:
It's like, "Ah!" I don't have a big oven to bake these things in, but yeah, so when we say large, rimmed baking sheet-
Jessie Sheehan:
You guys mean 18 by 13, your standard size.
Vaughn Vreeland:
Yeah, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're going to line it with parchment paper, and we're going to put some semi-sweet, or you can use bittersweet. Two questions, first of all, is there a brand you love? And second of all, what would Vaughn use, would you use semi-sweet or would you use bittersweet?
Vaughn Vreeland:
I would use bittersweet. When I want chocolate, I want chocolate. I think I've recently fallen back in love with milk chocolate, but there's a whole time and place type of thing there with me. I really like the Guittard two-ounce bars that they sell in those six-ounce boxes, and the red ones specifically are the ones that I buy.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. I've also bought, I think, it's the yellow or the semi-sweet.
Vaughn Vreeland:
Yes. The yellow is-
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, but I have those, too.
Vaughn Vreeland:
Yeah. I like those because they're also, it's really nice that they're two ounces, so if you're baking something that calls for five ounces of chocolate, you can just very easily break it up.
Jessie Sheehan:
So, we're putting some bittersweet chocolate if we're Vaughn, if we're channeling Vaughn, in some cocoa powder. So we're going to mix this all together with some espresso powder, which is going to bloom our chocolate flavor. It'll be stronger. Is there a brand?
Vaughn Vreeland:
King Arthur espresso powder is the one that I have because usually, if I'm ordering a bigger batch, I'll go with that, if I'm testing. I've done this with ground espresso as well. This is one of those things that I learned kind of the hard way in writing a recipe for another cookie that I did that called for an espresso powder versus ground espresso. There is a difference in the strength of those. This is calling for the espresso powder that you could get from the baking aisle.
Jessie Sheehan:
The little kind of jars.
Vaughn Vreeland:
Yeah, the little jars, but you can also use ground espresso. It might not come through as much, but you can also use the ground espresso.
Jessie Sheehan:
And we're going to put that in a small heatproof bowl or a glass measuring cup. Do you have bowls you love to work with? Do you like metal bowls? Do you like glass?
Vaughn Vreeland:
I use my metal bowls a lot. When we're filming, we always use glass bowls because you can see through it, obviously. I think that I use my glass Pyrex measuring cup for way too many things.
Jessie Sheehan:
I love it.
Vaughn Vreeland:
I use that as a mixing bowl all the time, too.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, I have a four cup, a two cup, a one cup, I'm a little obsessed.
Vaughn Vreeland:
The same, yeah. Oh, I love them.
Jessie Sheehan:
Me, too.
Vaughn Vreeland:
And they're microwave safe, they're heat safe. That is what I would do this in a lot.
Jessie Sheehan:
Totally, totally. Now, we're going to melt unsalted butter, and I wondered if there was a butter that you love.
Vaughn Vreeland:
No. And this one is one of those things also, when I'm working on any recipe, especially for the Times, I will use Kerrygold in one of them, and then I will use like a Land O'Lakes in another, just to make sure that that fat content isn't messing up the recipe at all. This one is fine.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. We're going to melt unsalted butter in a skillet or a saucepan, which do you use?
Vaughn Vreeland:
I have a little two-quart saucier that I use all the time. I love it, and it is perfect because of the rounded edges. It is perfect for browning butter, it's perfect for melting butter, I love it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. Then, we're going to do that over medium-low heat until the butter is bubbling but not browned, about three minutes. I read an instruction like this, and I immediately go to my microwave. How do you feel about that? Would you do that at home?
Vaughn Vreeland:
I would. Yeah. I would do it in-
Jessie Sheehan:
Because if we have our measuring, our glass Pyrex, then we can put it in the microwave.
Vaughn Vreeland:
Well, I think, yes, and for this, I've done it a couple different ways. This cookie, I will say also, is based off of a brownie recipe that I worked on for a very long time as well at BuzzFeed and it was our Brownie 101 and I worked with this wonderful woman, Susan Vu, who now lives out in L.A. She's a fantastic recipe developer. Tried brown butter, we didn't find that it made that big of a difference. We tried melting it all together in the saucepan. We've tried the microwave. A lot of these methods do work. It's about what you prefer. I think actually for this cookie though, I do use my little saucier because then I can just put my chopped chocolate and espresso powder in there-
Jessie Sheehan:
To the saucier and then-
Vaughn Vreeland:
... and whisk it. But I've done it to where I heat the butter in the microwave and then just pour it over the chopped chocolate, and the residual heat will melt it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I would put the butter in my large Pyrex and then I would add the espresso powder. I would add everything else on top of that.
Vaughn Vreeland:
Yeah. And bloom the espresso and the cocoa powder and then-
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, altogether.
Vaughn Vreeland:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, so interesting. We're going to pour butter over our chocolate mixture and we're not going to stir, we're going to let the mixture sit, so the residual heat can melt the chocolate thoroughly. So, did you find in testing that if you stirred it right away, it cooled down so quickly that the chocolate was still a bit chunky?
Vaughn Vreeland:
I found that it would either do that or the chocolate would even seize. I felt like it needed that heat from the butter to really slowly melt the chocolate rather than agitating it because if you're agitating it too early on, there could be like a crystallization that happens or it just doesn't fully melt.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep. We'll just let it sit while we whip our eggs and our sugar. So, we're going to put eggs and granulated sugar and dark brown sugar. Why dark brown, and why do we want both granulated and brown?
Vaughn Vreeland:
Yes. Dark brown... I'm kind of just in this kick where I only use dark brown sugar for stuff because I like how molassesy and deep the flavor is.
Jessie Sheehan:
Me, too.
Vaughn Vreeland:
And I think with chocolate especially, it amps it up even more. It bolsters that chocolatey flavor. I think the egg and the sugar step is the one that I worked on the most, right? This is where you get all the lift from in the cookie.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes, because there's no baking soda, baking powder.
Vaughn Vreeland:
There's no leavener in this cookie. I worked in different ratios. I found that the white sugar helped give me that kind of shine that I wanted, even on the top, and the dissolving of that really, really helped that. And then the brown sugar obviously is flavor, but it's also helping with that chew.
Jessie Sheehan:
Fudginess.
Vaughn Vreeland:
And then that fudginess that you're getting from that. And there are many steps that you take to get that, right? But it's an integral part-
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, elemental step.
Vaughn Vreeland:
Yeah, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yep, yep, yep. And we're going to add kosher salt. Times always specifies Diamond Crystal. This is all going into the bowl of our stand mixer, fitted with our whisk. If we use a hand mixer, we'll do it in a large bowl, glass, if we're on camera.
Vaughn Vreeland:
Glass, if you're on camera.
Jessie Sheehan:
Then, we're going to whisk on medium-high speed until the mixture is pillowy and the sugars begin to dissolve, about three to five minutes. First of all, love the word pillowy. Never described my whipped sugar and eggs as pillowy. Love that. Would you also say ribbony? Is it like you lift the whisk, and we get a ribbon? And would you also say lightened in color or no, because the dark brown sugar impacts that?
Vaughn Vreeland:
It does lighten in color. Ribbony, I would even take it a step further than the ribbon stage.
Jessie Sheehan:
Because ribbony, it's still a little loose, right?
Vaughn Vreeland:
Yeah. It's still loose, it's falling back into itself, and dissolving pretty immediately.
Jessie Sheehan:
This is almost whipped creamy?
Vaughn Vreeland:
This is kind of getting into that meringue style. Pillowy, I have so much fun thinking of... I mean, I'm on thesaurus.com all the time. I have so much fun thinking of ways to describe velvety, pillowy, but when you're writing words rather than video, and I think coming from the video side, and then now on the written word side, it's really tough to describe things sometimes when you're getting specific with this recipe.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. I love that. And I too am a thesaurus.com girl. I only trust thesaurus.
Vaughn Vreeland:
Of course. I mean, the people who say they're not-
Jessie Sheehan:
"I can't say beautiful again!"
Vaughn Vreeland:
No, I know. If I say perfect one more time, I think that I will be thrown out of the New York Times building.
Jessie Sheehan:
I know, amen. I know, 100%. We're going to stir our chocolate mixture at this point until it's glossy and smooth. And if there are any solid pieces of chocolate remaining, we can microwave the mixture in 10-second bursts until everything's melted. Then, with the mixer on low speed, we're going to add some vanilla. Is there a brand that you love?
Vaughn Vreeland:
I mean, if I'm expensing ingredients, Nielsen-Massey.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Vaughn Vreeland:
But I do... Now, because of Ina, I make my own vanilla. But especially when I'm testing a recipe, I'll always use a McCormick or something, just to be-
Jessie Sheehan:
Christina Tosi swears by it. I like it more.
Vaughn Vreeland:
I don't mind it either. Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
With the mixer on low speed, we're going to add the vanilla, then the chocolate mixture, scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl to make sure the chocolate is evenly distributed. Scrape with a flexible spatula. Then, we're going to add our all-purpose flour. Brand?
Vaughn Vreeland:
I use King Arthur for everything. I like King Arthur flour because I find it to be really consistent.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're going to mix on a low speed until just a few streaks of flour remain. And to avoid overmixing, we're going to use our spatula to kind of finish folding in the flour by hand. The dough will be glossy, it'll resemble very thick brownie batter. You say, "Using a two tablespoon scoop, we're going to scoop heaping amounts of dough into mounds directly onto our parchment-lined baking sheets, at least two inches apart, and we'll yield about 18 cookies." So, like nine and eight. I had a question about the scoop and our mutual friend Sam and I just were talking about this. I recently realized that all the scoops I thought were two are one and a half.
Vaughn Vreeland:
They're all different.
Jessie Sheehan:
Is there really a two?
Vaughn Vreeland:
Every scoop is different. I don't know what it is. I got it from the Williams Sonoma in Chelsea. The scoop that I have is-
Jessie Sheehan:
Is two?
Vaughn Vreeland:
... is a two tablespoon/one ounce-
Jessie Sheehan:
An ounce?
Vaughn Vreeland:
... scoop. So, I put water in it-
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, of course, I've done that.
Vaughn Vreeland:
And then I put it into a shot glass and I was like, "This is." And I tried it a few different times because the ones at our kitchen studio were different.
Jessie Sheehan:
They were probably one and a half.
Vaughn Vreeland:
The Oxo ones are different from the ones that you get at restaurant supply. And I don't know why scoops are not consistent across the board. I don't know who to talk to about this, but it is frustrating when I'm working a recipe.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, I've been writing recipes for years, saying “Grab your two tablespoon scoop,” and then I realized, "Are there any two? I mean, call Vaughn."
Vaughn Vreeland:
I mean, mine is, I think, I had an Oxo one and I think this one now that I have is from Williams Sonoma. I think it is.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, because the Oxos, I think, are definitely one and a half.
Vaughn Vreeland:
Oh, one and a half, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. No, because I'm always saying, "Use your one and a half tablespoon scoop or measuring spoons and scoop generously." Assuming that's going. To get me to my two tablespoons.
Vaughn Vreeland:
"And scoop generously." Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's actually a really... I like that.
Jessie Sheehan:
Right?
Vaughn Vreeland:
I'm going to go-
Jessie Sheehan:
And that way it may be a little bit better for people, just because whatever, the scoop thing is confusing to me.
Vaughn Vreeland:
Right. I mean, that's why the visual thing is so nice to have.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, my God.
Vaughn Vreeland:
But it's like, "Yeah."
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah. Or if people weighed... I mean, I write recipes now where I put the graham measurement for the balls because people really like that in a cookbook.
Vaughn Vreeland:
If I'm scooping cookie dough that's easier to scoop than this. This is actually like a thick brownie batter, so it would be really hard to-
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, so you wouldn't want to scoop it out onto your scale. I get it.
Vaughn Vreeland:
Yeah. It's going to be almost like a macaron, consistency of a macaron batter, a mixture of a batter and a dough. It's a little thicker than a batter, but a little thinner than a dough.
Jessie Sheehan:
And we want to work quickly when we're scooping to ensure the cookies stay shiny once baked. So, speeding up contributes to its shininess? The faster it gets into the oven?
Vaughn Vreeland:
The more that the batter sits out, the duller it's going to bake up.
Jessie Sheehan:
Ah, because it cools down?
Vaughn Vreeland:
I think, because it's cooling down, I think, because of the absorption of-
Jessie Sheehan:
Flour.
Vaughn Vreeland:
... maybe the flour. There is something that just alchemic that happened. When I can only bake quarter sheets at a time, the ones that I bake in the second batch are always less shiny.
Jessie Sheehan:
Interesting.
Vaughn Vreeland:
And also a little less crackly on top. I think it needs that moisture escaping to really contribute to that beautiful, craggy top.
Jessie Sheehan:
We're going to bake for eight minutes or until the cookies are starting to spread and take on a shiny outer surface and then we're going to remove the pans from the oven, whack them on the countertop, à la Sarah Kieffer, a couple of times, and that will actually create that craggly top, the fudgier consistency. I don't like a puffy cookie, so I always press with a spatula, and I learned that in my bakery days many years ago, but I always press post-bake. Did you test whacking after the bake?
Vaughn Vreeland:
I did.
Jessie Sheehan:
I guess my question is, does it matter when you whack?
Vaughn Vreeland:
Well, this brownie cookie is actually the almost 2.0 version of another cookie that I did for the New York Times, which is the Peppermint Brownie Cookie. And I did the Peppermint Brownie Cookie like that, which was riffing off of that brownie recipe I worked on at BuzzFeed, because Ina has this brownie recipe where you whack it, and we credited her in the video.
Jessie Sheehan:
Is it the Outrageous Brownies? You don't whack those. They're brownies that she makes literally in a sheet pan.
Vaughn Vreeland:
I can't... No, no, no.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay, those are different.
Vaughn Vreeland:
I remember those. There was this other brownie recipe that we saw of hers, maybe even in a book, and she bangs them and she puts them back into finish baking and almost knocked the air out of it before it could finish baking. And I tried that with the peppermint versions because I also really wanted to add crushed peppermint on top of them. And when I did it before I put them in the oven-
Jessie Sheehan:
You needed to do it midway.
Vaughn Vreeland:
Yeah, to have the peppermint hold its shape, but also adhere to the cookie, so I did this in the step, it's to add the salt, so that it adheres to the top without actually-
Jessie Sheehan:
Without being absorbed because-
Vaughn Vreeland:
Absorbed, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
... I thought that was really smart because if you add your flaky sea salt in the beginning, it absorbs.
Vaughn Vreeland:
It all absorbs.
Jessie Sheehan:
If you add it at the end, it falls off.
Vaughn Vreeland:
It falls off, yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
I thought that was brilliant.
Vaughn Vreeland:
This was the part of the recipe where I was like, "Okay, so this is the time to add your things." And I'll make them for birthdays, I'll add sprinkles at this point, whatever you're adding on top.
Jessie Sheehan:
No, that's brilliant. I love that. Now, we're going to return it to the oven to finish baking maybe another two minutes. So it's not even, I said midway, it's not midway, until shiny and slightly puffed. We're going to cool for a couple of minutes directly on the baking sheets before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Are they good warm or do they sort of fall apart?
Vaughn Vreeland:
They are good warm. They are good warm, but they definitely need time to set. I think they're so tender. Once that initial heat escapes and then like the osmosis kind of gets it back in there, it needs that time to be able to pick it up. But I have had them warm. Sam Seneviratne and I once actually made them into ice cream sandwiches, and they were really good like that, too.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yum. I just want to talk about the variation, which you kind of alluded to, but for the Peppermint Brownie Cookie, we're going to just replace the vanilla extract with the peppermint extract. As you said, "We'll replace the sea salt with the crushed peppermint candy." I love that we have the chocolate cookie, then we have the peppermint, but I also wanted to talk about other recipes from the cookie book. I need to talk about the cover girl, first because it's Sam's cookie, but also I think you tell us in the book that it's Emily Weinstein’s favorite cookie.
Vaughn Vreeland:
It is her favorite cookie.
Jessie Sheehan:
Okay. Tell us about the Double Chocolate Chip.
Vaughn Vreeland:
Yeah. The Double Chocolate Chip Cookie is so good. We actually just did a video with Sam about it, too. Those double chocolate chip cookies that you get from, I don't know, I would give them a baked sale or something like that. It was always lacking in something. It was always the chocolate flavor of the actual cookie base wasn't there or like it was missing the chunk factor. This is so chocolatey on both levels and it is just indulgent, but also so balanced and nuanced that it's really perfect. And Sam is so good at doing that. She's so good at making her desserts.
Jessie Sheehan:
She's just incredible as a developer.
Vaughn Vreeland:
Yes. And to me, her desserts are really addictive because they have that quality. It's like, "It's not too much. I can keep going back and eating them." And it just is stunning. They're shiny. Even beyond the just melted chocolate that's in them, it's a shiny, beautiful, mesmerizing cookie to look at.
Jessie Sheehan:
Gorgeous. Was it hard to choose it as the cover, or was that a no-brainer?
Vaughn Vreeland:
I think, well, we were between a few different ones. There's obviously an iconic chocolate chip. I think we were going for something to show folks that there's more to this book than a chocolate chip cookie. It was like, "What is also going to look good with the word 'cookies' in all different colors?"
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, and chocolate is brilliant.
Vaughn Vreeland:
And that dark brown really helped the title itself pop. And I think that that was also a big factor.
Jessie Sheehan:
Love it. Because they're so near and dear to your heart, this was your first recipe you ever developed. Tell us about the Eggnog Snickerdoodles.
Vaughn Vreeland:
Yes, the Eggnog Snickerdoodles. My sister is like, "If you ever sell that recipe, get royalties off of it, give it to me." But she got this recipe from, I don't know, a magazine in 2004. I was like, "Hey, can you send me the recipe? I kind of want to work with it." And she sent me the recipe called for, and nothing wrong with this, but it was Crisco and French vanilla coffee creamer and like all these things. And I was like, "If I'm going to make this for folks to be able to have access to basic ingredients, I have to rework it a lot." That was really fun for me because I was able to, again, kind of labor over a recipe and adding like, "Ooh, I think it needs a little bit more fat. How should I do that? Should I add an extra egg yolk into it? Oh, yeah, that would be cool because this is hearkening eggnog." And it's like all these things that I was able to really think so critically about, and that's my favorite part of recipe developing, is thinking critically about, "This is good, but what could make it better?" And als,o the use of rum extract in it is a little bit of a hack that really does make it taste like eggnog once it's baked up.
Jessie Sheehan:
Yeah, I love, love, love, love.
Vaughn Vreeland:
They're also a 45-minute cookie. There's nutmeg in the sugar that you roll on the outside.
Jessie Sheehan:
Ah, brilliant, so it's going to be even brighter than if it was baked into the cookie.
Vaughn Vreeland:
And it makes your house smell fantastic. Yes.
Jessie Sheehan:
Tell us about your Salted Margarita Cookies, which are also in the book.
Vaughn Vreeland:
We needed some bright citrusy things and you only have so many citrus cookies that you could do. This one was so fun because I love key lime pie, love it. It's one of my favorite things in the entire world and adding booze to. It and salt to it was kind of like-
Jessie Sheehan:
You were just like, "Hello."
Vaughn Vreeland:
.... "Hello. My two favorite things in the world, salt and tequila."
Jessie Sheehan:
So it is almost like a key lime curd is the word I'm looking for?
Vaughn Vreeland:
Yeah. It basically is like key lime curd, but with tequila and Cointreau in it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Amazing.
Vaughn Vreeland:
And because that is in there, I actually found that freezing them, once they're baked, is the way to do it because the alcohol keeps it from getting icy and the crust has actually crushed saltines.
Jessie Sheehan:
So do we eat them frozen, or you just like to freeze them to set them, and then you can eat them?
Vaughn Vreeland:
You can transfer them back to the fridge, but I just keep mine in the freezer because, honestly, they are so refreshing on a hot summer day.
Jessie Sheehan:
And you also said, "You could bring them to a potluck, you could bring them to the beach."
Vaughn Vreeland:
And I think if you have them frozen and then you're transferring them to a cooler bag, they will eat better by the time you're here.
Jessie Sheehan:
By the time you eat them, they will be perfect.
Vaughn Vreeland:
Yeah.
Jessie Sheehan:
And then finally, I just wanted to end with Eric's Gochujang Caramel Cookies.
Vaughn Vreeland:
Yes. Oh, I mean, this is the cookie that launched a thousand covers. It is our icon supermodel cookie. I don't think that any of us necessarily knew when he was talking about it that it was going to be as big as it was, but then when he made it and we tried it on set, we were like, "This is genius." It is so mesmerizing to look at. You have a streak of bright red gochujang going throughout the middle of it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Is it in the caramel, the gochujang?
Vaughn Vreeland:
It is in, yeah, and it's not even like you're making like a boiled-sugar caramel, you're basically doing brown sugar and butter and then adding gochujang to it.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, wow.
Vaughn Vreeland:
And that's the swirl that's in it, so they're not only so nuanced and complex, they're also quite easy to make-
Jessie Sheehan:
Wow.
Vaughn Vreeland:
... which I think is why they took off so much because people see the recipe and they're like, "The gochujang caramel, this seems so"-
Jessie Sheehan:
Complicated, yeah.
Vaughn Vreeland:
..."complicated. I would never be able to do it." But then they look at like 30 minutes and then they look at all these comments that are like, "The best, easiest cookie ever." And they just take off-
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, my God.
Vaughn Vreeland:
... and it brings something. I think that that's another one of those cases where it's, Eric is so good at this too, not giving people what they want, but giving people what they don't know they want yet.
Jessie Sheehan:
They don't know they... Love. Love. Well, thank you so much-
Vaughn Vreeland:
So good to see you.
Jessie Sheehan:
... for chatting with me today, Vaughn, and I just want to say that you are my cherry pie.
Vaughn Vreeland:
Oh, stop it. And you're mine. Should we sing the song now?
Jessie Sheehan:
Yes, exactly.
Vaughn Vreeland:
I guess copyright, we're probably not allowed to, but oh, thank you so much. This was fantastic and I literally, I mean, we could talk shop all day.
Jessie Sheehan:
Oh, my God. Hours. Hours.
That's it for today's show. Thank you to Diamond of California Nuts for supporting our show. You can find today's recipe at cherrybombe.substack.com. Don't forget to follow She's My Cherry Pie on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen and tell your pals about us. She's My Cherry Pie is a production of The Cherry Bombe Podcast Network. Our producers are Kerry Diamond, Catherine Baker, and Jenna Sadhu. Thank you so much for listening to She's My Cherry Pie and happy baking.