Creative Cookies: Delicious Decorating for Any Occasion [Paperback]

Toba Garrett (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 28, 2002

"The mouth-watering photos are enough to send you running to the store for baking equipment and ingredients.gorgeous.works of art.a very good chapter on equipment.Recipes are clearly explained and a wealth of photographs and illustrations ensures that even novices will have success with their cookie-making marathons."--New York Daily News

Once you get hooked on making these delicious decorated cookies, you'll want to create occasions to bake more! The recipes are simple, from gingerbread to shortbread, sugar cookies to chocolate. What makes these extra special are the techniques and tools to make them look special: ruffled bibs in soft pastel hues for a baby shower, a white chocolate rose with eight petals, or a 3D bride and groom for wedding and anniversary celebrations. You'll make these effects with confidence thanks to the author's clarity and creativity, especially when it comes to incorporating tools such as paintbrushes, a quilter's wheel, an X-acto knife, embroidery scissors, and the simplest instructions we've seen yet on piping.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The mouth-watering photos...are enough to send you running to the store for baking equipment and ingredients...gorgeous...works of art...a very good chapter on equipment...Recipes are clearly explained and a wealth of photographs and illustrations ensures that even novices will have success with their cookie-making marathons." --New York Daily News

About the Author

Toba Garrett is a master cake designer and sugarcraft artist. She attended Le Cordon Bleur in Paris. Her cakes have appeared at Bloomingdale's Weddings & Celebrity Weddings showcase and in Bride's, Gourmet, Essence, and Showcase magazines. She is a winner of the trophy of Les Commanderie des Cordons Bleus de France for outstanding wedding-cake design.

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Sterling (May 28, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0806974877
• ISBN-13: 978-0806974873
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 7.7 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #538,157 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Toba Garrett heads the department of cake decorating and design at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City. Garrett holds a Master's Degree in Educational and Instructional Technology from Long Island University and is the author of Professional Cake Decorating, The Well-Decorated Cake and Creative Cookies: Delicious Decorating for Any Occasion. She is a member of the International Cake Exploration Societe and former President of the Confectionary Arts Guild of New Jersey, and was named one of the Top Ten Cake Artists in the U.S. in 2010 by Dessert Professional magazine.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

84 of 84 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best cookie decorating book I've seen yet, November 9, 2001

By 

Melanie (AL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Creative Cookies: Delicious Decorating for Any Occasion (Hardcover)

and I have purchased several. Even beginners can recreate Ms. Garrett's creations because of her detailed explanations and pictures. Outstanding recipes, especially for the glace' icing (much more preferable than royal icing, I think. Besides tasting great it also dries hard to the touch which is a plus when you need to stack the cookies). She gives very imaginative and classy ideas for baby showers, mothers day, heart designs, monograms...to name a few. She also gives suggestions for adding your own touches. I especially love her wedding cake cookies (which you can adapt for b'day or anniversary occasions) and her "get well" cookies (you can use any message to personalize it). She provides full size patterns from which to make templates but I hope she comes out with copper cookie cutters in these shapes.

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Easy to follow and fun, March 26, 2003

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Creative Cookies: Delicious Decorating for Any Occasion (Paperback)

This book has very well laid out instructions and beautiful photos, which makes it very easy to follow. You can go through the sections one by one to learn different decorating techniques. And there are a lot of different ideas in the book, so you can enjoy creating new decorated cookies for a long time.

One nice thing is that the book also tells you how well each dough and icing stores and how to store them, so you don't have to use an entire batch at once.

I've found that it takes a little practice to get the consistency of the icing just right and to get a steady hand to outline and draw on cookies. And it takes a lot of setup time (e.g. making several colors and types of icing) to duplicate the cookies shown in the book. But overall, I think they can be duplicated pretty well even by an amateur.

44 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally, the cookie book you've been waiting for!!, April 20, 2001

By 

Stacey Dawn Brody "gemini29" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Creative Cookies: Delicious Decorating for Any Occasion (Hardcover)

Finally, someone has written a book on baking beautiful cookies, complete with beautiful, clear, full-color photos, easy-to-follow instructions and great ideas for cookie gift-giving. There are many, many (believe me, I've looked) books on cookies, but all of them seem to neglect the fact that cookies can look as beautiful as any cake or pastry. A cake is a good gift if you have a way to transport it, or if there aren't terribly many people to be served from it, but cookies are easy to take anywhere without too much effort, can often be made quite a bit in advance, and can be made in "batches" so that many can share the extraordinary goodies. Toba Garrett is an experienced chef (I've been trying to register for her sold-out classes several times) with an impeccable reputation (not an easy thing to attain in New York City!) who writes in a very easy to understand fashion. The recipes are easy and the cookies astoundingly beautiful (and shhhhh!, they're not hard to do either--but your guests won't know that!)