Customer Reviews

Creative Cookies: Delicious Decorating for Any Occasion

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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!)

Great book. I always baked cookies but never with cutters for decorating. I made her butter cookies and cut them out with my cutters. PERFECTION!!!!! I'm still trying to get the hang of flooding, but the glace icing is delicious! You don't have to do the more complicated techniques, I didn't. I started out slow...brushing cookies with sieved apricot jam and pouring sparkles on the cookies. AWESOME!!!!

Toba Garrett has succeeded in creating a beautiful book, full of lovely cookies that is also practical in that she presents each component of the process separately and then ties them each together in simple, easy to follow directions. Recipes, decorating technique and specific designs are each presented in such a way that mastery is simple and the user can easily create his or her own designs using the lessons learned.

An excellent book for the creative and curious home baker.

It is very difficult to find any information on Cookie Decorating. I couldnt wait to receive this book and i wasnt disappointed when i got to see it. The cover {which is beautiful}only hint's at the wonderful cookies inside.There are cookies for beginners up to cookies decorated with gumpaste flowers.It covers equipment needed and how to use them.It has a variety of icing and cookie recipes.Every cookie mentioned has a picture for you to go by. There are over fifty cookie pictures,several in each picture.My favorite is the cookie box! There are Wedding cake cookies, Groom's and fathers day cookies,cookies that are decorated to look like a quilt, emboridery,stitched, stenciled , monogramed, with flowers etc. You'll be able to create show stopping cookies and they'll taste great as well!! I love this book and i hope she put other ones out soon!

Great book for the novice cookie decorator! It's full of ideas for all occasions. It takes you through each beautifully decorated cookie, showing you a color picture of what the finished product will look like, giving you the recipes to use (both for the cookie and for the icing/decorating) and giving illustrations on exactly how-to-do-it and what decorating items and recipe ingredients you'll need to complete the chosen product.

This book is a work of art. Mrs. Garrett was able to create a book that even a child can understand. At first, just from the cover, I thought I could never ever make even a single morsel. But after reading the book and the clever way she broke down the recipes, I, too, can make cookies.

Thank you, Toba Garrett, for considering those of us who may need some hand-holding in the kitchen.

As a student of Toba Garrett in NYC, I knew before I bought this book that it would be wonderful, and it is!!! --the recipes are easy to make, and the decorating is simple enough for the novice and stunning enough to challenge those with skill.(If you have never decorated before, Toba explains step by step along with numerous color pictures to guide you) You'll make cookies that you never thought possible. Definitly a must have!

this is the best book for simple and easy, yet elegant cookies that will impress anyone! recipes are flawless and instructions are great! One of my favorite and most used books!