- Merrill
So, this post is coming a little late in the game. For months now, Amanda has been saying I should write a blog post about all of the cravings I've had over the course of my pregnancy. (For those of you who have been asking, I'm due January 15th, and we're expecting a little girl.) And for months I've resisted.
Perhaps this is because, for the most part, my cravings haven't been all that weird. Sure, for the first few months when I wasn't feeling great, I subsisted on lemonade and pickles, and there was that brief phase where I simply had to stop and get an order of Rickshaw dumplings on my way home from the office most nights (my pre-dinner dinner). But for the most part, I've been enjoying most of the same food I normally eat -- just slightly more of it.
The one thing I have craved pretty much consistently over the past 8 months is cookies. I've always liked cookies of pretty much all sorts, but lately they've become a bit of an obsession -- especially when I can enjoy them with a tall glass of milk. Over the next few weeks, as I approach my due date, I thought I'd share some of my all-time favorite cookie recipes with all of you. I figured the timing couldn't be better with the holidays already upon us, and it's great excuse to revisit some of the cookie recipes from my childhood, which were made with love and dexterity by my wonderful mother.
What I'd really like, though, is for all of you to share your favorite pregnancy craving stories in the comments section below -- and, if you're feeling up to the challenge, add any craving-inspired recipes to FOOD52. Got a great lemonade up your sleeve? Fantastic hot fudge sundae? Something genius using pickles and/or peanut butter? We want to see these creations! And keep in mind, we're always on the hunt for Wildcards... Just sayin'.
Adapted from The Fannie Farmer Cookbook
Makes about 4 dozen cookies
- 1/2 cup softened unsalted butter
- 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter (not the unsweetened kind)
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup light brown sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
See a photo slideshow and the full recipe (and save and print it) here.
Photos by James Ransom
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merrill
I'm a native New Yorker with over a decade of experience as a private chef, cooking instructor and food writer/editor; I have a culinary degree from Le Cordon Bleu, as well as a highly practical BA in Comparative Literature (Italian and English). I live with my husband and daughter in Park Slope, Brooklyn, where we visit the farmers market most weekends.
Some past articles from this author you'll love:
A Potluck Lunch
Make-Ahead Meals
Feeding a New Family
65 Comments on Peanut Butter Cookies:
this recipe is so simple and yet so divine. freezes great. if they make it into the freezer. we woofed them down.
Did you freeze the dough or the finished cookies?
With my daughter I detested meat, especially chicken throughout the entire pregnancy. I craved fruit salads and cinnamon rolls, and then there was the Oreo cookie ice cream incident.
With my son, I CRAVED meat, I needed meat, I'd grind my teeth as I hunted like a mad lion for a good steak to sink my teeth into.
I have never had a child, but I can share my Aunt's craving: Pine-sol. And not any ole pine-scented cleaner. It had to be the real thing. To the point that she wanted to drink it! She never did, of course, but you would think she was smelling the most delicious fragrance it the world when she opened that bottle.
My favorite, all-time cookie has got to be peanut-butter/oatmeal. Something abou that texture. WOW! Talk about cravings!
And congratulations too Merrill!! I got sidetracked by the thought of those cookies!
I adore peanut butter cookies, always have and always will! I started with the Joy of Cooking recipe also, when I was in high school, have tried others and always go back. I adopted my daughter, so no pregnancy cravings. Still, when walking out and about with her whe she was 6 weeks old, and people would stop me to ask me how old little Hannah was and then would tell me that I looked fantastic!! And I said, "Thank you!". But the best part of all was that I got a little girl that HATED peanut butter! So the cookies were all for me!! (Or the worst part?)
#1 - Grapefruit, by the BAG. Standing over the sink to eat them, peeling them, squeezing them, experimenting with every possible way to get every last drop of juice and bit of flesh out of them. Picked up a 10-lb bag the week after he was born and poof, the craving was gone . . . every last one of them rotted.
#2 - Nothing notable.
#3 - Absolutely any fruit, as long as there was lots of it. Had no interest in sweets, which normally is my go-to craving.
BEER! That's by far my strongest craving this time around (#2). But that's probably just because I love good beer and can't drink it right now.
I have to put my two cents in about peanut butter cookies. My all time favorite peanut butter cookie recipe is from "Joy of Cooking". I always use crunchy, organic, salted p-nut butter from Trader Joe's. I'm convinced this is the best p-nut butter for cookies (they have creamy too). And I add chocolate chips - super yummy.
Now to cravings. My first pregnancy I had a bunch of aversions during first half and then basically ate what I normally eat. My second pregnancy I didn't have many cravings or aversions. The one thing that was weird during both pregnancies was that I had an aversion to my husbands breath...not all the time, but often enough. I had us both convinced that he had a tooth abscess, but he never did. And once the babies arrived, his breath was as sweet as ever!!
Enjoy these last few weeks Merrill, your life is about to change in so many wonderful ways.
sorry about the multiple comments. Don't know what happened.
Love peanut butter cookies! But when I was pregnant the first time I NEEDED Banana Cream Pie. I'd bake one every Sunday, cut it into 7 wedges and ate one piece each day. This went on for months. YUM! Gotta get out that recipe one of these days. Hope it all goes well for you.
Love peanut butter cookies! But when I was pregnant the first time I NEEDED Banana Cream Pie. I'd bake one every Sunday, cut it into 7 wedges and ate one piece each day. This went on for months. YUM! Gotta get out that recipe one of these days. Hope it all goes well for you.
Love peanut butter cookies! But when I was pregnant the first time I NEEDED Banana Cream Pie. I'd bake one every Sunday, cut it into 7 wedges and ate one piece each day. This went on for months. YUM! Gotta get out that recipe one of these days. Hope it all goes well for you.
Love peanut butter cookies! But when I was pregnant the first time I NEEDED Banana Cream Pie. I'd bake one every Sunday, cut it into 7 wedges and ate one piece each day. This went on for months. YUM! Gotta get out that recipe one of these days. Hope it all goes well for you.
Love peanut butter cookies! But when I was pregnant the first time I NEEDED Banana Cream Pie. On Sunday I made one, cut it into 7 wedges and ate one each day for about 4-5 months. YUM. I can taste it now and wish I had some. Have to dig out my recipe.
Love peanut butter cookies! But when I was pregnant the first time I NEEDED Banana Cream Pie. On Sunday I made one, cut it into 7 wedges and ate one each day for about 4-5 months. YUM. I can taste it now and wish I had some. Have to dig out my recipe.
Love peanut butter cookies! But when I was pregnant the first time I NEEDED Banana Cream Pie. On Sunday I made one, cut it into 7 wedges and ate one each day for about 4-5 months. YUM. I can taste it now and wish I had some. Have to dig out my recipe.
Love peanut butter cookies! But when I was pregnant the first time I NEEDED Banana Cream Pie. On Sunday I made one, cut it into 7 wedges and ate one each day for about 4-5 months. YUM. I can taste it now and wish I had some. Have to dig out my recipe.
I'm happy for you and interested that your proposal occurred on Food52, we all read about your honeymoon and now we are reading about a baby addition to your family! It's moving in an odd way, since we don't know you face to face and nice of you to share with us.
I knew I was pregnant with my first baby when I dreamed about eating Korean food. It is very unusual to taste food in a dream and when I woke up I knew immediately that I had conceived. Later I knew because I had morning sickness. No big cravings but I did eat up a good portion of my father in laws crop of Satsumas when we visited them mid pregnancy.
During the first pregnancy, I craved fish and oranges, not together, though. The second pregnancy, I could not keep anything down, so no cravings, just a desire to actually keep food in me.
I do have a peanut butter cookie recipe which is dynamite, super easy, and tasty.
1 cup peanut butter, 1 cup sugar, 1 egg, and 1 tsp. vanilla... Oven on 325 F and use silpats...
Sometimes, I use half crunchy, half smooth. It is super-peanut flavor.
elizabethintexas
I am now on pregnancy #2. The first time around all I wanted was cheddar cheese popcorn, pizza and fudge. Aparently good fudge is hard to come by in Atlanta!
Now on pregnancy #2 I have more aversions than cravings which is sad. However, the pizza craving remains a staple (perhaps unrealted to preganancy ha ha!) but I am also craving Pad Thai, Nachos, shrimp and all forms of cheese.
I, too, am going through a baking phase and your Cream Cheese cookie recipe has been whipped up twice in 2 weeks! LOVE THEM!
Good luck with your baby! Little girls are awesome! Mine is 17mo old and is crazy! Have fun!
These look divine. I love peanut butter cookies and feel thankful I don't have to be pregnant to enjoy these. My pregnancy cravings were sour patch kids, which stymied my nausea (and now, induce it) and mashed potatoes, preferably eaten off the back of a large mixing spoon
The picture of these cookies would make anyone crave them! It also inspired another craving; one for a bit of trivia. Does anyone know why peanut butter cookies are always marked with the criss-cross of a fork?
All three pregnancies I have craved pineapple...in any form...juice, crushed from cans, fruit salad, fresh...and my favourite pregnancy drink - pineapple juice mixed with dry ginger ale - yum. With baby number three it was also fresh strawberry smoothies...
Merrill, good wishes and best of luck to you as you enter the home stretch. So exciting that you will be having a baby girl! Your cookie recipe looks wonderful -- we are a cookie-loving household and will check it out! When I was pregnant with my daughter, I craved fresh fruit. Luckily my first trimester was at the end of the summer, and I ate mountains of berries, citrus, plums, peaches, you name it. I also had cravings for baked potatoes topped with lots of butter and sour cream. That was the one food that would quell my nausea. My big aversion was to coffee -- the smell of it made me feel ill. I had to leave the kitchen whenever my husband was brewing his morning cup!
Congratulations, Merril! I ate a lot of chocolate chip cookies with my first (I joke that at least 50% of his birth weight was made of chocolate chip cookie), washed down with cold milk. With all of my pregnancies (I'm on #3, due in Feb), I had an aversion to fish, especially the smell of very fishy fish, like mackerel. In fact, I knew I was pregnant with #2 when the smell of my husband cooking a Marcella Hazan recipe with swordfish steaks, white wine and tomatoes that I just couldn't be in the same room with. Otherwise, I eat more or less the same things I like, but enjoy chips, cheese, meat and fruit so much more.
Merrill is a co-founder of food52.
added 5 months agoWow, thanks everyone for sharing these great craving stories -- and for all of your kind words!
I've never had much of a sweet tooth, and when pregnant with my son, I also developed an intense craving for meat, especially beef in practically any form. With my daughter, it was cold pasta. From the Deli. Which I would eat in the car on the way home to actually make dinner. My only read meat now is bison, though I still like leftover cold pasta for breakfast. Merrill, warm congratulations on your new daughter-to-be. You look so beautifully happy. We all hope smooth sailing for you.
Congratulations, Merrill! I'm learning about cravings now (I'm pregnant with my first child). The only, but oddest and most embarrassing craving I've had is meat ... I was vegetarian for 14 years and am tuned into the local, whole foods movement. One day I HAD to have a Whopper of all things ... and I was so famished (all of a sudden) that I ate three. It hardly put a dent in my hunger, but I stopped. This is not my finest moment. Now I'm trying to learn how to cook meat so I can eat better-quality meat ... but it's very intimidating.
My first pregnancy began with intense aversions as opposed to cravings. Surprisingly, I could not even look at a tomato without feeling sick! Thankfully that passed and my most intense craving was for these enormous local grass fed cheeseburgers every Saturday at the Farmer's Market. That craving continued once my daughter arrived. When I look at those burgers today, I cannot even fathom how I was able to eat one, every Saturday, for breakfast. With my second pregnancy, I had no aversions, and other than dark beer and milk, no real cravings outside of what I normally enjoy eating.
Congratulations again Merrill. During my three pregnancies, the one thing I could eat morning, noon and night was fried yam, with tomato stew - a Nigeria staple (http://www.kitchenbutterfly.com/2011/12/02/the-taming-of-the-stew/). I didn't have anything weird like pineapples and rice....or chocolate in soup!
I made these tonight and while they were good, I found that the peanut butter was overpowered by the sugar and was a hindsight, not the major player. I think I will try it again using half as much sugars and play..... Again, good but just too sweet for my tastes.
During my first pregnancy I craved a spicy rice cake dish from a local Korean restaurant (Dduk Bok-ki), and my husband needed to make late night runs there on several occasions. I also craved chocolate milk shakes, but my husband pointed out that this phenomenon was not pregnancy-specific. During my second pregnancy I craved a pumpkin curry dish from a Thai restaurant that was unfortunately closed for renovations for months 4-9. When it reopened, shortly after I gave birth, I no longer had the craving.
My pregnancy was a bit of a surprise - I first suspected something was up when I developed an intense craving for sweets (not something I indulged in often). I actually came home from work one day and demanded my husband bake me brownies! (He obliged, though I had to wait a day - we didn't have all the necessary ingredients on hand.) After that it was fruit - which I'm still eating a ton of now that the baby's here. I think like you, I ate mostly the same sorts of things I always did, just more of them. Avocados and almonds, blueberries, eggs, lots of salty, crunchy and vinegary things are what I reached for most often. I didn't shy away from hot or intensely spiced food, either - I ate a lot of curries, salsa and kimchi. And I'm a big water drinker, but I found myself craving alternative beverages - very tart, fresh lemonade and homemade fruit shrubs topped with fizzy water got me through the summer.
Congrats on your pregnancy Merrill! During my third pregnancy I had an insatiable thirst for pepper juice. I would buy jars of pepperoncini (or in a pinch Vlasic pepper rings) and chug the juice right out of the jar like a college freshman with a can of Shaefer Light. I buried the leftover peppers and jars in the bottom of the trash so my husband wouldn't think I was crazy(er). Don't get me wrong--I put away a staggering number of crispy chocolate chip cookies too...
This post made me smile.
@Paprikash
@ PAprikash - OMW - Oh my word. Amazing......
Oh my, Merrill, Wishing you smooth sailing for the upcoming blessed event! Cookies are a wonderful thing, but what about cake? And I mean your Deep Chocolate Cake with Orange Icing. In my family we reserve a phrase for recipes that are so wonderful that they they are beyond words. I would say this cake qualifies as "a religious experience". At any rate, when I was pregnant with twins I sort of lost my taste for much of anything, but somehow manged to gain 30 pounds. Second pregnancy with a singleton, everything tasted good especially M&Ms which I pounded with abandon and I gained more weight with #3 than with #s 1+2.....
Congratulations Merrill! You are in the home stretch. For the first trimester of my first pregnancy, I could not stand the sight or smell of meat. Then, all of a sudden I craved kosher hot dogs smeared with catsup, mustard, and relish. During my second pregnancy, I devoured pints of ice cream - Ben & Jerry's with fudge sauce, regardless of flavor. I had a secondary craving for Chinese dumplings and ribs. Nothing particularly healthy!
Congrats, Merrill! I, too, craved cookies during my final months of pregnancy and while nursing. I was making and eating so many cookies, though, that I decided I would keep them in the freezer as a way to stay out of them. Suffice it to say that I now prefer to eat my cookies frozen! My favorite was Martha Stewart's Oatmeal and Chocolate Chip cookies with a big handful of walnuts thrown in for crunch. I suggest you freeze them as something great happens to them in the freezer!
I discovered the joys of Frozen Girls Scouts Thin Mints only a few months ago. I though the attendant frozen deliciousness was confined to them. Now you're telling me it isn't.............sigh!!!!!! Thanks anyway
Boeuf Bourguignon. I was really sick for five full months with my first, but Boeuf Bourguignon was like a drug. I'd eat it and that evening and the next day I'd feel great. It was the only food that appealed to me for the longest time. For my second, it's all a blur, as I had at the time a one-year old who was in constant motion, and also hungry all the time. I made a lot of Boeuf Bourguignon, as well as meat loaf, ragus full of beef, and coq au vin, because Son Number One really liked all of those things, and they appealed to me, too. I don't remember craving anything else. I do remember having to force myself to eat a variety of foods. ;o)
I think the Beef is a protein and iron thing. I made a pot au feu last month and ate the whole thing myself, with mustard and cornichons.
Congratulations Merrill! With my first daughter, I needed mint chocolate chip ice cream in the house at all times (and woe to my husband who finished the container!). Also, Aloo Chaat from Indian restaurants, or anything with a lot of tamarind and that spicy green chutney. With this one I really can't get enough of spicy foods. My morning breakfast (or you know, second breakfast) has been a sprouted wheat bagel spread with cream cheese and Thai sweet chili sauce. I've also been downing falafel sandwiches with yogurt and hot sauce, and spicy spicy Thai food. I am always so disappointed when I order Thai and there's no heat.
Basil rolls from the Thai place near my house -- several times a week during my last trimester. My husband picked them up for me so often that when I was in the hospital after my daughter was born, the restaurant owner brought over an order for me as a gift. He actually phoned the hospital first to find out if I whether I was registered as a patient.
Mazel Tov Merrill! Being pregnant is so exciting. Everyone in my family knows that I had a craving (read obsession) with Three Bean Salad when I was expecting my son 24 years ago. I ate a jar of it EVERY single day. I've started to make my own (the craving never really went away) but now I am having trouble finding yellow wax beans canned or frozen. Any ideas?
Yay for cookies! Baby #1 had me yearning for fruit all the time, especially strawberries. Baby #2 was chinese food. I couldn't even indulge that one much because of gestational diabetes. 4 years later I still can't get enough good chinese food!
Congratulations, Merill! With my son, I had to have a coffee milkshake everyday at four o'clock. WIth my daughter it was sweet tea with enormous amounts of crushed ice. At any time of the day.
Congrats Merrill - how wonderful to hear you're adding to the Food52 family. When I was pregnant (many, many moons ago), like Tara, I craved fresh oranges. I used to eat two at a time, then turn around a couple of hours later and eat a couple more. When I didn't feel great (especially during first 4-5 months), I also ate soft boiled eggs.
When I was pregnant with my first I was off of food for 9 months. Yet one day when I was visiting Dresden I have an desperate need for french fries with ketchup. I went to the fancy grocery store, and bought a 1 kg bag of McCains frozen fries and a bottle of the real Heinz. I went home, made and ate the whole bag. I never did anything like it before or since.
Peanut butter cookies aren't so bad! I remember thinking my first pregancy's cravings of 5-alarm, scorched-earth, blazing hot thai food (heartburn, anyone?) and vanilla soft serve were bad. But the second one? The second one I craved butter and beer. Really craved beer. Would have seriously considered trading in the first born to have been able to drink a whole six pack of pale ale. I mean, really? What kind of pregnant lady craves beer? And I'm not even a big beer drinker normally.
Niknud, I craved beer at the end of my pregnancy, too! And I'm also not typically a fan of it. About a week or so postpartum, my husband brought me home some Sixpoint Righteous Ale, and it was heavenly :)
Embarrassing though it may be, my pregnancy craving could be spontaneous which sometimes came in handy. A spoonful of peanut butter studded with chocolate chips. Naughty.
Congrats and all the best, Merrill! My mom also made these peanut butter cookies but she would stick a peanut in the top before baking them. I haven't make them in a while, so you've inspired me.
I was very fortunate and felt great all 9 months of both pregnancies. The one think I remember craving was citrus. My boys were born in the June and May respectively and I remember eating 4 to 6 clementines at a time both winters during the first trimester. Oh, and grapefruit. Toward the start of the third trimester, I lost a taste for tomato sauce and started eating my pasta with just butter and cheese. And now, 17.5 years after my oldest was born, there are still days I don't want tomato sauce.
I look forward to seeing more of your cookie recipes. Thanks for sharing them!
Congratulations! I live in Rome and my son goes to an Italian school. He's the only foreigner in his class (we're Canadian - though he was born in Rome). We corrupted his grade one class at snack time recently with home made milk chocolate and white chocolate cookies. Want the recipe for Nico's biscotti con cioccolato?
1 1/4 cups of flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 stick (I think that's 1/4 cup) of butter - basically lots of butter - softened
2/3 cup of brown sugar or dark cane sugar
1 large egg
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 large bar of milk chocolate chopped into chunks
1 large bar of white chocolate chopped into chunks - both missing pieces you can't help but eat.
Mix flour and baking soda together. Cream butter and sugar together in a large bowl. Using an electric mixer, beat in egg, salt and vanilla. Mix in the flour and baking soda with a spoon (not the mixer). Add the chocolate. Drop small spoons full of batter onto carta di forno (I can't remember what you call it - the paper you can put in the oven) lined cookie sheets, spaced about two inches apart. Bake at 350 F for 8 to 10 minutes.
All the children in his class wanted the recipe. It's a new school for him so he's winning friends through butter and chocolate.
I am not sure why but I craved soy banana smoothies (my husband made one for me every morning of my 1st pregnancy.
I also craved vegetarian (fully cooked) sushi rolls.
I ate eggs every morning during my pregnancy and then didn't eat another egg for 4 years!
Congratulations!
Congrats! I'm also pregnant and it looks like we've shared similar cravings. I had a serious dumpling obsession and now I've moved on to cookies. Your herbed chicken cutlets with parm have also been a regular staple, we eat it at least once a week!
Hi Merrill--congrats! When I was pregnant with my son I'd be overcome with cravings for aloo sag--the Indian dish with spinach and potatoes. My dear husband would drive to our favorite Indian restaurant 20 minutes away to come back with the order (they didn't deliver!) I also kept a can of cashews in my car for my morning commute--couldn't get enough salt (I know that's bad.) And I think during the 9 months I must have tried steak frites at every bistro and restaurant in town that offered them. And don't even ask about the chocolate milk....
OK this isn't pregnancy craving but I do crave my friend the duck often! http://www.food52.com/recipes/10784_orange_daffy_snaps
Congrats and best wishes, Merrill! I ate more apples and oranges and than I could count during my pregnancy. Also, fruit juice (lemonade, orange juice, cider), which I rarely drink regularly. I never expected that ice cream or french fries wouldn't top my list. Enjoy these last weeks of a very special time.
My mom made these for us and I now make them for my kids. As far as I'm concerned, this is the definitive peanut butter cookie recipe.
Merrill is a co-founder of food52.
added 5 months agoYou said it!
Hurrah for cookie recipes! Perfect timing as you said - the Christmas table will be laden with cookies ... will have to borrow pregnancy stories though - don't have any of my own (don't tell Ginger that, she thinks I am her biological mother :-)
Merrill is a co-founder of food52.
added 5 months agoMy lips are sealed.
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