16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Specific Purpose for a Specific Audience, January 2, 2010
This review is from: Good Housekeeping The Great Christmas Cookie Swap Cookbook: 60 Large-Batch Recipes to Bake and Share (Hardcover-spiral)
The Great Christmas Cookie Swap Cookbook is a book with a very specific purpose. While reading it I would sometimes forget its singular job and wonder why a cookie recipe required FOUR pounds of butter -- a necessity when making multiple batches. It was disconcerting and amusing.
The vast majority of the sixty recipes are standard cookie recipes that would be expected fare at a cookie swap - Peanut Butter Cookies, Classic Sugar Cookies, Drop Sugar Cookies, Sour Cream Sugar Cookies, Coconut Macaroons, Almond Macaroons, Scottish Shortbread, Snickerdoodles, Mexican Wedding Cookies, etc. Although most of the recipes are old favorites, the Good Housekeeping editors did sprinkle a few interesting cookies and variations that would be standouts at any cookie swap - like Praline-Topped Brownies (which I prepared and are quite delicious), Finska Kakor (which were also great) and Apricot Raspberry Rugelach - a rugelach combination I had not tried and the result was terrific.
This is a solid cookbook but geared toward the cook that does not have many or any cookie cookbooks, because 95 percent of the recipes would be found in any basic cookie volume. The book's selling point is the convenience of having the large batch calculations done for you. Of course, doubling, tripling or quadrupling recipes really doesn't require much effort --but if the reader has serious time constraints -- and, there are many people in precisely such a position -- this cookbook may fill a void.
The book is attractive, easy to read (small font size but dark ink), easy to use (spiral bound) and the finish on the pages should make any spills or splashes easy to clean up. Fully a third of the book is 4 1/2 by 7 inch blank recipe cards - a blast from the past when computers were not used to print out and share recipes. I'm not sure most of us have time to write out recipes by hand to share at a cookie swap. The quantity of recipe cards also somewhat distorts the size of the book, which would have been a much slimmer volume without their inclusion. Rather than blank recipe cards, more cookie recipes would have added greatly to the book.
There are photographs of most of the cookies, but not all. There are a number of captioned group pictures of three or four different cookies, which is a fine and economical way to handle it, but also added to my annoyance that every cookie variation isn't shown. Publishers of cookbooks need to stop viewing illustrations as optional. Sometimes I will see a picture of a cookie, find its appearance less than attractive, and decide on that basis alone to skip it. If the cookie is for family or children it isn't so important, but for a party or bake sale it takes on greater significance.
This book isn't for everyone, but it is festive and would be a nice gift for a novice baker, a cookbook collector or any harried soul with no time to add two and two together.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Big Batches for Cookie Exchanges, January 4, 2011
This review is from: Good Housekeeping The Great Christmas Cookie Swap Cookbook: 60 Large-Batch Recipes to Bake and Share (Hardcover-spiral)
I was initially taken aback by the smaller than usual size of the book (7.5" x 6") but it delivers the promised 60 large-batch recipes as well as a few useful tips for hosting a cookie swap and packaging cookies. I often forget to check the size of books when reading Amazon's product description.
The book is spiral-bound so it lays flat on the counter when you're cooking. The page count listed in the Amazon description is misleading as it includes attached recipe cards. There are 125 pages of content, a two-page index, and a page with photo credits follwed by 16 recipe cards (which can be torn out on perforated lines).
I would have liked to have seen more photos of finished cookies. Photos of the finished products were provided for four bar cookies, four drop cookies, ten rolled and cut-out cookies, and seven of the shaped and refrigerator cookies. There were a few photos of the process such as cutting biscotti slices and cutting and shaping rugelach.
The recipes produce between 84 and 320 cookies, with an average yield of 96 bar cookies (such as brownies and blondies) and 120 of the other types of cookies.
I like that each recipe includes not only the basics (such as the active time, bake time and suggested yield) but also nutrition info. The nutrition information includes approximate calorie count; grams of protein, carbohydrates, and fat; and miligrams of cholesterol and sodium. Of course, yield and nutrition information is approximate since the size of the cookie depends on the cook, and it is difficult to make each cookie identicsl in size.
The chapter on Bar Cookies includes recipes for:
-Hermit Bars (yields 96 bars)
-Czechoslovakian Cookies (yields 96 bars)
-Blondies (yields 96 bars)
-Praline-Topped Brownies (yields 96 brownies)
-Almond Shortbread Brownies (yields 96 brownies)
-Lebkuchen (yields 128 cookies)
-Lemon-Cranberry Shortbread (yields 96 bars)
-Caramel-Pecan Bars (yields 96 bars)
-Figgy Bars (yields 96 bars)
-Apricot-Almond Squares (yields 96 squares)
The chapter on Drop Cookies includes recipes for:
-Chewy Chocolate-Cherry Oatmeal Cookies (yields 108 cookies)
-Peanut Butter Cookies (yields 144 cookies)
-Drop Sugar Cookies (yields 126 cookies)
-Coconut Macaroons (yields 126 cookies)
-Double Chocolate-Cherry Drops (yields 120 cookies)
-Hazelnut Cookies (yields 96 cookies)
-Christmas Fruit Drops (yields 144 cookies)
-Florentines (yields 96 cookies)
The chapter on Rolled & Cut-Out Cookies includes recipes for:
-Classic Sugar Cookies (yields 152 cookies)
-Cinnamon Spirals ((yields 120 cookies)
-Nutmeg Bells (yields 130 cookies)
-Sour Cream-Sugar Cookies (yields 155 cookies)
-Shortbread Bites (yields 320 bites)
-Lemon Hearts (yields 144 cookies)
-Brown Sugar Holly Leaves (yields 108 cookies)
-Apricot-Raspberry Rugelach (yields 96 cookies)
-Holiday Stained-Glass Cookies (yields 120 cookies)
-Palmiers (yields 112 cookies)
-Finska Kakor (yields 128 cookies)
-Walnut Horns (yields 160 cookies)
-Best Linzer Cookies (yields 96 cookies)
-Whole-Wheat Sugar Cookies (yields 144 cookies)
-Berry-Orange Linzer Jewels (yields 108 cookies)
-Gingerbread Cutouts (yields 108 cookies)
The chapter on Shaped & Refrigerator cookies includes recipes for:
-Snickerdoodles (yields 108 cookies)
-Mexican Wedding Cookies (yields 96 cookies)
-Cocoa Wedding Cookies (yields 108 cookies)
-Chocolate Crinkles (yields 96 cookies)
-Spritz (yields 120 cookies)
-Spumoni Icebox Cookies (yields 180 cookies)
-Sally Ann Cookies (yields 144 cookies)
-Almond Macaroon Fingers (yields 125 cookies)
-Noisettines (yields 96 cookies)
-Lemon Slices (yields 96 cookies)
-Citrus Slices (yields 168 cookies)
-Angeletti (yields 120 cookies)
-Nut Crescents (yields 144 cookies)
-PB+J Thumbprints (yields 120 cookies)
-Raspberry Linzer Thumbprints (yields 96 cookies)
-Figgy Thumbprints (yields 180 cookies)
-Peppermint Meringues (yields 108 cookies)
-Lemon Meringue Drops (yields 120 cookies)
-Sugar Twists (yields 108 cookies)
-Christmas Jewels (yields 144 cookies)
-Scottish Shortbread (yields 96 wedges)
-Greek Cinnamon Paximadia (yields 96 cookies)
-Pistachio and Cherry Biscotti (yields 96 cookies)
-Ginger Biscotti (yields 96 cookies)
-Whole-Grain Gingersnaps (yields 84 cookies)
-Butterscotch Fingers (yields 96 cookies)
If you don't want to bake in large batches, I recommend the
Very Merry Cookie Party: How to Plan and Host a Christmas Cookie Exchange. It has tips for hosting a cookie exchange as well as more than 100 recipes for cookies, bars, and shaped cookies.
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