‘Snacking Bakes’: Make pastries that are easy, quick, simple

The holidays are often a time for baking projects, but what starts as a simple plan to make cookies with the family can quickly grow into baking marathons for the office, school holiday party, book club, and more. Soon enough, you’re covered in flour and frosting. 

However, food stylist Yossy Arefi says you can make many recipes without a lot of ingredients, equipment, time, or even knowledge. Her latest cookbook is Snacking Bakes: Simple Recipes for Cookies, Bars, Brownies, Cakes, and More. 

She defines a “snacking bake” as “a really simple recipe that can satisfy a craving in an hour or less.” Central to the pastry book is its casual and personalized nature. While most standard recipes require room-temperature ingredients, Arefi uses cold dairy products and says they don’t negatively affect texture or taste. Chilling the dough is not required either. The aim is to alleviate the intimidating nature of baking.

Her book teaches you how to make all sorts of chocolate chip cookies — vegan, gluten-free, thin and crispy, gooey and chewy. 

She explains her New Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe: “It has a very deep flavor because we're using browned butter. So we're cooking the butter, cooking those milk solids, so you get some extra toasty flavor. It also has a little bit of whole wheat flour, which is optional. There's an option to use … all-purpose flour. But I love the wholesome flavor and the deeper flavor of a little bit of whole grain flour in my baking. And then it has the perfect amount of salt and the perfect amount of vanilla. And this is where it gets controversial: Not too much chocolate.” 

She uses 25-30% less chocolate than other recipes, but says if you really love chocolate, then use more. 

“Part of the ethos of these recipes is that you can make them your own. … You can use milk chocolate … dark bittersweet chocolate … a combination. And you can add more if you want, add less if you want. … Cater these recipes to your own tastes, and experiment to make them just how you like them.”

Rather than chips, Arefi chops chocolate from a bar, which she says melts better. It also allows for multiple experiences when eating the cookie: One bite can contain a lot of chocolate, and another bite can be mostly the base dough with sweet flakes. 

Yossy Arefi’s new book is “Snacking Bakes: Simple Recipes for Cookies, Bars, Brownies, Cakes, and More.” Courtesy of Yossy Arefi. 

Another recipe in the book: Do-It-All Salted Butter Shortbread. The base requires “the best butter that you can find,” flour, sugar, and salt. From there, you can add whatever flavors and spices you want: poppy seeds, chopped nuts, citrus zest, etc. It’s all baked in an eight-by-eight-inch pan — you can cut the pieces into uniform rectangles — or all different sizes. 

Yossy Arefi’s recipe for Ginger Cherry Oaties features oatmeal. Credit: Yossy Arefi. 

A special holiday recipe in Snacking Bakes is Ginger Cherry Oaties. She describes, “That's a really great ginger cookie that has some additional texture with some oatmeal added to it, and some dried cherries added to it. But if you don't have dried cherries, you could use cranberries, or you could use chopped-up apricots, or you could use chocolate chips, or you could use neither of those things, and just have a ginger molasses oat bar.”