Drop cookies are a wonderful category at any time of the year, including the holidays. This category contains such favorites as chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies, as well as peanut butter. For the holidays these homey classics can be dressed up with some of the decorating suggestions given in Chapter 1, and many of the recipes in this chapter contain lots of dried and candied fruits, which makes them more festive as well as nutritious.

In some respects, the word drop is inaccurate. Although the dough is softer than for rolled cookies, it really doesn’t drop onto the baking sheets without some coaxing. There are two ways to accomplish this task: another spoon or a finger. If using the “two spoon method,” spray both spoons with vegetable oil spray first to make it easier to slide the dough off with the other spoon.

The first cousins of this hall of fame are balled cookies. Rather than just depositing the dough on a baking sheet, small portions are rolled into balls. In these cases the cookies emerge from the oven looking far more uniform and elegant and less homey and homemade. Most of the cookies in this chapter can be baked in that manner. If the dough is too soft to roll at first, try chilling it well and it should firm up enough to roll.

While rolled cookies and drop cookies take more time than bar cookies due to portioning the dough, this is a task that has traditionally been given over to children once the dough is made. However, some guidance is needed because the success of drop cookies depends on mounds of a uniform size. The size includes both the diameter of the circle and also its height.

If the cookies are of a uniform size, the difference between chewy cookies and crisp cookies is the baking time. All these recipes have a range given of a few minutes. If you bake them for the minimum amount of time, you’ll have a much moister and chewier cookie than if you let them go for the full baking time at which point much of the moisture will have evaporated during the last few moments of baking.