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Learn to COOK - A Baker's Field Guide to Christmas Cookies
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List Price: $17.95
Our Price: $15.16
Your Save: $ 2.79 ( 16% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Harvard Common Press
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Average Customer Rating: 
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Binding: Spiral-bound
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.8654
EAN: 9781558322639
ISBN: 1558322639
Label: Harvard Common Press
Manufacturer: Harvard Common Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 176
Publication Date: 2003-10
Publisher: Harvard Common Press
Studio: Harvard Common Press
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Editorial Reviews:
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A fun, original new take on a classic subject, this book is a collection of classic Christmas cookies from all over the world, set up in a field guide format.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Cookie Book
Comment: I bought this book and I love it. There are so many cute cookies ideas. I haven't actually made any yet but I'm planning on to very soon. :-)
Customer Rating:
Summary: Don't wait for Christmas to buy this book!!
Comment: I have gone through two Christmas seasons using this cookbook with many compliments on the resulting baked goods, but have also found many recipes we use all year long. Some of the best features are:
Symbols with each recipe to indicate if the dough can be frozen, if the cookies keep well, if they are kid-friendly to make, quick to make or sturdy enough to mail.
The binding is a sturdy covered spiral so the book lays flat on the table and the pages do not tear or come loose from the binding.
The introduction has excellent information on ingredients, storage, baking and cooling advice and equipment needed
There is a listing of Resources in the back for equipment mentioned or required in the recipes so you can order items by phone or over the internet.
PICTURES! Excellent photos of each cookie so you know how it is supposed to look. This is especially helpful when making cookies with children; they like to have an idea of what they are making.
The recipe for Kris Kringle's is the best I have found. The same for the Snickerdoodle recipe (I make these at least once a month).
My children have made many of the recipes with me. Their favorites are the Peanut Butter Chocolate Kiss Cookies, Night Before Christmas Mice, Pepparkakor (ginger snaps), Easy Christmas Wreaths, Candy Cane Cookies and Mocha Orange Pinwheel Cookies.
There are also a whole range of more complicated, interesting cookies, which one would want to make without their kids help.
The format is easy to follow, easy to read and less intimidating than Rose's Christmas Cookies (also a great book).
Customer Rating:
Summary: Love this book
Comment: This is a Christmas cookie lovers dream. It has easy to read instructions, great info on storage. Lots of space in the book for your personal notes as well.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great for New Bakers
Comment: I decided to bake Christmas cookies for the first time this year. I ordered several books and this one is the best. Its not too overwhelming. The layout nice and the sprial binding makes it easy to use. The assortment or recipes is good, but lacks the homey feel that someone's great Aunt Edna's recipe handed down over generatons will provide. But, its good for the basics and for those starting out.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Very good reference for all the standards. Recommended
Comment: This `A Baker's Field Guide to Christmas Cookies' by Dede Wilson is a perfect example of how the same subject can be served well in two very different ways. The obvious touchstone against which to proof this volume may be Rose Levy Beranbaum's book on Christmas cookies. But, this would be an unfair comparison. Beranbaum's work covers the very high end of Cookie making, ending with a truly glorious creation of a gingerbread cathedral of Notre Dame. Beranbaum also covers just about every little issue you may possibly encounter in baking cookies and provides us with lots of unusual recipes.
Dede Wilson, on the other hand, has given us a very practical kitchen reference for lots and lots of common cookie recipes baked for Christmas, including several ethnic favorites such as the relatively difficult Moravian Ginger Cookies.
My favorite thing about Ms. Wilson's contribution aside from its spiral binding which lays flat on the table is the fact that you often have more than one recipe for a particular type of cookie. For a rolled gingerbread / spice cookie recipe, there are at least three alternatives, not even including the difficult Moravian cookie. That generally means that if you want to make a particular kind of cookie, you have your choice between an easy, intermediate, and hard recipe.
Other very nice features are the fact that every recipe falls on two facing pages, begins with a very clear picture of one or two of the cookies, states the type and (very cute here) habitat, gives a description of the cookie and alternatives, gives the shelf life under proper storage conditions, and gives appropriate tips on making this and similar cookies. I think the recipes are well written and leave little room for error, although I was just a bit confused by the instructions to form rolled gingerbread dough into a disk. This sounded more like instructions for a freezer cookie than a rolled cookie.
The introductory material to the book gives nothing near the detail of Beranbaum, but gives enough to avoid any egregious errors. It also does not give lessons on using piping bags and other decorating techniques, but none of the cookies require elaborate methods.
The book does include an appendix on sources, most of that are probably familiar to regular bakers such as King Arthur, KitchenAid, and Wilton. Several are unfamiliar and welcome to me, especially New York Cake and Baking Distributors and The House on the Hill.
If I were the author, I may have included a bibliography of major works on cookies such as by Malgieri, Heatter, and Beranbaum, especially for help on decorating, but the book does a pretty good job of standing on its own as a great reference for common cookie recipes. It really fits its `Field Guide' metaphor well.
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