For decades, Zoë François has built community through her baking. With her 10th book, “Zoë Bakes Cookies” — already a bestseller — she is sure to widen that circle.
What began as a straightforward installment of the Minneapolis pastry chef’s favorite recipes quickly morphed in a deeply moving ode to the humble treat that transformed her life, and a testament to the women who forged paths before her, handing down their stories and strength through tattered recipe cards.
François starts the book talking about the commune where she was raised, a nomadic upbringing where carob was the closest thing to a chocolate chip cookie. While she is still working to develop an appreciation for some aspects of that cooking, she does share her aunt’s granola and some gluten-free peanut butter cookies.
She then guides the reader through the science and discovery of home ec class, and how as a lonely kid she learned to make friends by cracking the codes of edible chemistry. A college business course led to a cookie cart — and a course correction from academia to the prestigious Culinary Institute of America, where she learned to create fine-dining-level pastries — and the fun of breaking the right rules.
Perhaps most important, the heart of this book is a testament to the women who formed her, including her great-great-grandmother, whose bravery and boldness to surreptitiously bake bought passage for the Jewish family to flee just before the Russian Revolution.
Between stops on her current book tour, we talked to François by phone about the unexpected turns her sweet life has taken, the canonical importance of a tray of bars and why bakers really are the best people. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

This book feels like a lifetime — or lifetimes — in the making, with chapters of your life as well as your ancestors and women you celebrate. What about writing this book felt like a homecoming?
I didn’t start with that in mind. This was just a love letter to cookies, and sharing the tips and tricks we get to use in a professional kitchen. And I have recipes from my grandmothers, and obviously those stories were going to make it in. Settling into this, I didn’t know what I didn’t know.