Customer Reviews

Field Guide to Cookies: How to Identify and Bake Virtually Every Cookie Imaginable

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

 

 

It may only be October, but I believe I've found the perfect stocking stuffer for the upcoming holiday season. The pocket sized cookbook A Field Guide to Cookies by Anita Chu promises to assist you in learning how to identify and bake virtually every cookie imaginable. She isn't kidding either. The author offers up recipes in all the major cookie categories including drop, bar, molded, and rolled.

Each recipe is neatly outlined with a general description of the treat, the historical background, serving suggestions, helpful baking notes, and even storage tips. Best of all, located in the center of the book are color images of every recipe. This is especially helpful due to the number of recipes inside that I've never heard of before. Have you ever made a Financier? How about a Speculass or a Congo Bar? Sometimes I find it hard to break out of my chocolate chip cookie comfort zone, but I sincerely believe this cookbook will nudge any home cook out of the baking rut you may be experiencing.

I hate giving this cute book a bad review, but it has failed me many times. I love that it has pictures of each cookie, and all manner of facts about cookies, but the recipes are not good. I have made maybe five or six cookies from here now, and only one (anzac biscuits) was worth eating. I have been a professional baker for eight years now so it's not like I can't follow a recipe. I think they might not have been tested enough really. It's a shame, but I've given up on this book. Too many sub-par cookies due to it's pages means it is going in the back of cookbook cabinet. I'll keep it around for the fun trivia, but I don't plan to bake anything from it again.

I love the size and shape of this book.
There are so many cookies, some I have never heard of and I'm a pastry chef! And there is a beautiful color photo of each cookie.
This is an outstanding reference guide to cookies.

Best cookie book EVER! A huge variety and all made with good ingredients--butter, eggs, etc, NOT shortening and gelatin! Easy to follow directions and the cookies have nicely written histories. Cannot recommend this book any higher!!

A good book for beginners and for people have been baking for longer especially she includes pretty much every cookie I can think of or would ever want to bake with very clear directions. All this for a great price.

This book is wonderful! Helpful for the person just learning to make cookies, but helpful for even a person like me who bakes a lot. Includes tidbit information about some of the recipes - where it originated, story about how it was created, etc. Wonderful - MMMM Good recipes. Some of the recipes were already my family's favorite - but it's nice to have the recipes all in one book.

I strongly recommend this book for any time of year!

I really like this little book. It's got great recipes, tips on techniques, and lovely pictures of the cookies. The author really did a lot of homework to find so many cookie recipes from around the world.

Every recipe in Field Guide to Cookies includes the history, serving suggestions, general description and baking tips for this particular cookie. It is really nice to find out more about how my favorite cookies came to be, while giving me the opportunity to learn about new treats to try. Field Guide to Cookies also has tips on making the perfect cookies, for instance how to not over-mix the dough which can over-develop the gluten and results in tough cookies (not too tasty)!

There are recipes for drop, bar, molded and rolled cookies. All the traditional cookies are included, like peanut butter and chocolate chip, but there are also many international favorites, like Anzac Biscuits, Rugelach (love!) and Springerle. I was excited to see a recipe for Animal Crackers, which were originally made by the National Biscuit Company (later changed to Nabisco). From the history blurb I learned that this childhood favorite of mine started being sold in the fun circus boxes in 1902. Did you know that those boxes were originally meant to be hung on Christmas trees? I had no idea! Field Guide to Cookies offers a lot of engaging information which really motivated me to make all my favorites and more!

Sadly, this is is a wholly unusable book. It is poorly indexed. The pictures are not with the recipes - they are in a separate section. The pictures are numbered by recipe not by page number so you have to go back to the index to find the page number after looking at picture. (Sounds confusing? It is.) And forget about finding a picture after locating the recipe first!

Bound as it is it does not lie flat. And the pages are too small to slip under things to hold them open.

The recipes that we have made are fine, but the book is just to awkward to be practical.

Stick with Betty Crocker.

El libro me parece fantástico, tiene una grandísima variedad de recetas, trucos y consejos. Ideal para principiantes o para tener un buen compendio de recetas.