Baker's Field Guide to Christmas Cookies (Baker's FG) [Hardcover-spiral]

Dede Wilson (Author)

Book Description

Series: Baker's FG | Publication Date: October 2, 2003

Full of an extraordinary selection of cookie recipes, this field guide to 75 recipes from around the world makes holiday baking easy.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Every baker should have The Baker's Field Guide series in the kitchen..." (David Lebovitz ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From the Back Cover

PRAISE for A BAKER'S FIELD GUIDE TO CHRISTMAS COOKIES

 

“With A Baker’s Field Guide to Christmas Cookies firmly in hand, this delectable selection of recipes will expertly navigate you through all your holiday expeditions! But this is more than just a book for Christmas. Dede Wilson’s extraordinary range of cookie recipes provides a full year of sweet exploration for cookie lovers all over the globe.” —David Lebovitz, author of Ripe for Dessert and Room for Dessert

 

“Dede Wilson’s A Baker’s Field Guide to Christmas Cookies is not only an entertaining and informative volume on the subject, but a supremely practical one as well. What relaxing fun the next holiday season will be—I’ll simply pull out this beautiful book to find every recipe I need for perfect cookies to serve at home and give as gifts.”—Lauren Chattman, author of Mom’s Big Book of Baking, Icebox Pies, and Instant Gratification

 

“Dede Wilson’s book is chock full of information, with a delightful range and variety of recipes. It makes you want to run, not walk, to your kitchen and start baking cookies!”—Jennifer Appel, author of The Buttercup Bake Shop Cookbook

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover-spiral: 176 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Common Press (October 2, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1558322639
• ISBN-13: 978-1558322639
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #683,075 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dede Wilson is a popular food writer and television personality with her own public television show, Seasonings with Dede Wilson, in wide distribution throughout the U.S. and Canada. An additional show, The Holiday Table, began airing in Fall 2006 and will run through 2009; the 90-minute Holiday Pledge Special that she produced for PBS in 2005 was re-broadcast throughout the holiday season in 2006, 2007 and 2008. Wilson has been a spokesperson for KitchenAid, making frequent live and televised appearances around the country for KitchenAid products. She is also a prolific cookbook author and a contributing editor for Bon Appetit magazine. Wilson has appeared on all the major TV networks, and has been invited frequently to appear on shows including Today, The View, and Live with Regis and Kelly. She has also appeared on QVC to sell her cookbooks, has been featured on Bon Appetit podcasts, and makes personal appearances at Bon Appetit events around the country. Currently she hosts a monthly Bon Appetit segment on the CBS's Early Show.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Cookie cookbook!, December 6, 2003

By 

"wkniii" (Out in the boonies in Ohio, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Baker's Field Guide to Christmas Cookies (Baker's FG) (Hardcover-spiral)

Having purchased many, many cookie cookbooks, I have gotten really picky about buying new books. When this book first published, I found it on a bookstore shelf and fell in love with it. This book has almost everything one could ask for.....BEAUTIFUL photographs with EVERY recipe, history and description of each cookie, type of cookie, place of origin with it's international name if it has one, very well written directions for baking, batch yield, "lifespan" (length of storage)and "field notes"...little tidbits of information regarding the cookie itself or the ingredients within. This book includes the good ole American AND International favorites. In addition to recipes, Ms. Wilson has included directions for things such as tempering chocolate, toasting nuts and decorating cookies. She has very detailed information regarding equipment, ingredients, storing and mailing cookies, and resources for supplies and ingredients. It is very simply written and elegantly designed. This book is excellent not only for the novice bakers, but the seasoned ones as well. It would make the perfect gift for anyone. I have been baking cookies every Sunday for many years and this is, by far, one of the best books I have used. I highly recommend it to everyone.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Delightful, creative, and original, November 30, 2004

By 

Harold McFarland (Florida) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Baker's Field Guide to Christmas Cookies (Baker's FG) (Hardcover-spiral)

What a creative idea for a cookbook! The book literally follows the standard format for a field guide to animals or plants. For each cookie it provides the type, habitat (country the recipe is from), description, field notes (where the recipe came from, origin of name, etc.), and lifespan (how long the cookie will keep). Of course it also has ingredients and directions for making the cookie, and total yield for the recipes.

These are some truly creative recipes that children will love, like the Night Before Christmas Mice, which actually look like mice, and traditional favorites like snickerdoodles or pizzelles. It even has a recipe for salt-dough ornament cookies - totally inedible but can be decorated to make permanent Christmas ornaments. A Baker's Field Guide to Christmas Cookies is fun, creative, and recommended.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very good reference for all the standards. Recommended, December 9, 2004

By 

B. Marold "Bruce W. Marold" (Bethlehem, PA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Baker's Field Guide to Christmas Cookies (Baker's FG) (Hardcover-spiral)

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.