A delicious tour of America’s favorite treats, cookies, and candies from the beloved author of the bestselling Cake Mix Doctor series and American Cake   IACP AWARD FINALIST • “Every recipe comes with a story as delicious as the small bite it describes. And best of all, every small bite begs to be baked.”—Dorie Greenspan, James Beard Award–winning author of Dorie’s Cookies   Each of America’s little bites—cookies, candies, wafers, brittles—tells a big story, and each speaks volumes about what was going on in America when the recipes were created. In American Cookie , the New York Times bestselling author and Cake Mix Doctor Anne Byrn takes us on a journey through America’s baking history. And just like she did in American Cake, she provides an incredibly detailed historical background alongside each recipe. Because the little bites we love are more than just baked goods—they’re representations of different times in our history.   Early colonists brought sugar cookies, Italian fig cookies, African benne wafers, and German gingerbread cookies. Each of the 100 recipes, from Katharine Hepburn Brownies and Democratic Tea Cakes to saltwater taffy and peanut brittle, comes with a lesson that’s both informative and enchanting. “No matter how much you know about America’s favorite little sweets, you’ll learn so much more from Anne Byrn’s new book. Every recipe comes with a story as delicious as the small bite it describes. And best of all, every small bite begs to be baked.” —Dorie Greenspan, James Beard Award-winning author of Dorie’s Cookies “In American Bites, Anne Byrn unearths rare and prized recipes for addictive hand-held sweet treats that tell a fascinating story about our nation. In this journey-in-receipts, we trip from the Jewish bakery in Savannah known for its chocolate meringue crisps to the streets of New Orleans, where turn-of-the-century street vendors sell the yeast-risen Creole rice-fritters called calas. As in her American Cake, cooking this book isn’t just an adventure back in time; these recipes have all the sweet exactitude we’ve come to expect from “The Cake Doctor,” resulting in perfectly delicious cookies, tea cakes, and jumbles that will be the stars of any contemporary holiday—or everyday!—table.” —Matt Lee and Ted Lee, authors of The Lee Bros. Charleston Kitchen “Anne Byrn has not only given us a hundred reasons to bake for ourselves and others, but she has also curated a collection of histories as rich and delicious as the treats themselves.” —Kelly Fields, James Beard Award nominee and chef-owner of Willa Jean Anne Byrn is the bestselling author of American Cake and the Cake Mix Doctor and Dinner Doctor cookbook series. Formerly a food editor at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and a graduate of the La Varenne École de Cuisine in Paris, Byrn lives with her family in Nashville, Tennessee. Chapter 1 Drop Cookies Past & Present Dropping cookie dough onto pans has been an act of love throughout history. This chapter of favorite drop cookie recipes brings together kitchen favorites from all regions, spans the centuries, and satisfies every craving. These cookies might be familiar to you or yet to be discovered. And they range from simple to sinful, from no-frills to special occasion, from ginger-spiced to fruit-studded to just about the best chocolate chip cookie on this planet. I begin with the ginger-spiced Grandma Hartman’s Molasses Cookies and the fabled Joe Froggers and follow with sugar cookies like the old Dutch Tea Cookies and a slightly more modern Cousin Irene’s Sugar Cookies. Then come chocolate cookies, oats, peanut butter, and those cookies crammed with nuts, fruits, and goodies—some people call them “kitchen sink,” but in Texas they call them “cowboys.” Throughout history we have baked drop cookies with what we had on hand. These cookies have varied from a recipe more than they have followed it. And their magic comes not from chemistry and getting all the measurements just right but in their ability to pull together effortlessly at the last minute and taste great! The earliest drop cookies were mostly likely spoonfuls of sweetened, beaten egg whites dropped onto hot cast-iron pans and placed in the oven. Or they were drops of pound cake or fruitcake batter baked in small portions to save time and feed many. The earliest cookies in this chapter weren’t even called cookies when people first baked them. They were known as snickerdoodles, wafers, drops, kisses, or rocks. As the pans changed, the ovens improved, and more ingredients became accessible and available, cookies as we know them were born. Drop cookies remain popular because they are dead-easy to bake by any of us—grandmothers, moms, dads, even first-time cooks. What you get today with a drop cookie is the same as it was years ago—a modest cookie that symbolizes childhood, simpler times, seasonal ingredients, and a last-minute desire to bake something for those you love.   G