108 Asian Cookies: Not-Too-Sweet Treats from a Third-Culture Kitchen

A first-of-its-kind collection of mouthwatering cookie recipes inspired by Asian flavors and techniques, from Cantonese Shortbread to Ube Linzer Cookies, from IACP award finalist and bestselling cookbook author Kat Lieu

If baking was one big epic tournament, and all the baked goodies in the world were delicious warriors, there’s no doubt in Kat Lieu's mind that the cookie would be the ultimate champion. Why? Because the cookie, so often underestimated by its compact size, is a baking powerhouse, a shapeshifting canvas.

This very adaptability endears the cookie to the masses, and it's no wonder that everyone has a favorite cookie (or two). Beyond their flavors, cookies represent a multitude of stories, with each baker infusing a fragment of their journey into every batch. In Lieu's own baking, she's discovered pieces of her spirit, heritage, and dreams stirred into the batter and dough, each cookie a chapter of a larger narrative waiting to be savored and shared.

108 Asian Cookies is an ode to this personal and intimate world of cookies—a world as varied and rich as the tapestry of Asian cultures and ingredients that inspired these recipes. Some of the cookies reflect Lieu's third-culture identity as a Canadian-born Vietnamese Chinese American while other recipes blend flavors and stories from across Asia and its diasporas. And some recipes are by members of Subtle Asian Baking, the global online baking group Lieu founded in 2020. The recipes here aren't just about introducing black sesame, pandan, miso, and ube into the cookie these 108 cookies will also dive into timeless recipes passed down through generations, the ones that meld our personal histories with broader ones—that of colonization and immigration, of adapting and settling, of practicality and creativity.

With 108 Asian Cookies as your guide, your kitchen will be filled with sweet—just not too sweet—desserts. View Less