Long-term residents of Turkey know that buying cookies here can be a fraught activity. Turkish kurabiye (cookies), while delicious, are typically dry and biscuity, quite different from the soft, gooey morsels some of us grew up with. Baking is another option, but that can be equally dubious thanks to the nature of the ingredients here. The baking soda and flour produced in Turkey have different chemical compositions from those in Europe and the U.S., while essential components like vanilla and chocolate chips aren’t readily available—all resulting in cookies that don’t taste nearly like the ones we are obsessed with back home. What’s a cookie-lover to do?
Now, there’s an easy alternative. Jacqueline Cookies is open for business in Cihangir, delivering up soft, chewy American-style cookies throughout the city. The cookie shop was started by Tarık, who grew up in Istanbul, then lived six years each in England and Belgium (the shop is named after his Belgian mother, Jacqueline). He was familiar with Turkish kurabiye as a youngster, but he first tasted a “proper” cookie in London. From that moment he was hooked: “I was like, ‘Wow, why don’t we have this in Turkey?’ I always had in my mind, one day I’m gonna open a cookie shop, one day I’m gonna open a cookie shop.”
Ten years later, he has achieved his dream. But in order to produce the familiar taste and soft, chewy texture of foreign cookies using ingredients he could procure in Turkey, Tarık spent a prodigious amount of time testing different formulas. “I had to find out all about all the different flours, what they had in it, what was different between them. Same with the sugar.… I did tests with them, compared the taste, chewiness, color of it, how the cookies spread out.”
After more than two months of nonstop trials, Tarık finally landed on a satisfactory formula. Currently, Jacqueline Cookie offers a dozen different cookie flavors, some familiar—like peanut butter, chocolate chip and oatmeal—and some unique or gourmet, like baklava-and-walnut and white-chocolate-macadamia. You can order them (in addition to coffee and hot chocolate) for pick-up from the shop in Çukurcuma—frequent shop-goers get their eighth cookie free—over the phone, or from YemekSepeti.com, where Jacqueline Cookies has ranked #1 in user ratings for several weeks on end. Not living in Istanbul? No problem: they now ship boxes of cookies all over Turkey.
Turkish customers have been Jacqueline Cookies’ most prolific, attracted by the “exotic” ingredients—peanut butter is a rarity here and macadamia nuts and pecans are unknown. As for me, I am normally very frugal about prices when it comes to food and eating out. Couldn’t I bake a dozen cookies out of not much more than 6.50 TL worth of ingredients?
Yet even I found myself won over. The other day, we bought a selection of cookies and they were delivered straight to our table in Çukurcuma, where we had just eaten lunch. Whether ordered at the shop or for delivery, the cookies are always baked on-demand, and then handed to you warm and gooey, straight from the oven, either in a packet sealed with a tiny clothespin or wrapped in a cute box. The cookies themselves are rich and satiating, chock full of butter, giant chocolate chips and nuts. The warm and chewy texture was redolent of family baking nights with my brothers and sisters. Plus, I’d be hard-pressed to make or find Jacqueline’s more unique formulas, like baklava, anywhere else. Therefore, I believe Jacqueline Cookies will be a haven both for foreign residents seeking a sweet taste of home and for locals seeking new tastes.
Tarık has realized that running his dream cookie shop isn’t easy, of course—he is up until midnight every day baking cookies—but he is content. “This still gives me pleasure. Once people take a bite of my cookies and they go ‘Wow,’ it makes me happy.”
Website: Jacquelinecookies.com, facebook.com/jacquelinecookies, www.instagram.com/jacquelinecookies/
Hours: Monday-Saturday, 12-10 pm. Closed on Sundays.
Phone: 0212 243 81 58, 0530 460 77 12
Address: Kuluoğlu Mah. Taktaki Yokuşu 18a Cihangir Beyoğlu İstanbul
Directions: From Taksim, walk down Sıraselviler Street. At Cihangir Square (the intersection of Sıraselviler and Firuzağa Cami Street) turn right. Continue straight down the flight of stairs (Taktaki Yokuşu). Jacqueline Cookies is at the end of the stairs on the right.
Cassondra loves swing sets, art and finding hidden historical gems. She writes about Istanbul, travel, language and teaching at Pulsations.
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Awesome.
When did you visit? I tried to go today and they are closed for refurbishment.