Cookie Craft

Cookie Craft is almost more of an arts and crafts cookbook than a cookbook, despite the fact that it has a number of versatile cookie recipes included it in. This is because the book is not primarily about baking cookies, but is instead about decorating cookies. It seems to fill the same place in the cookie-baking realm that books like Hey There, Cupcake! and similar publications do in the cupcake sphere. Both concepts come down to the fact that cookies and cupcakes are fun to decorate, can be done up in a nearly infinite number of ways and are way more fun to eat and make then they look good.

Cookie Craft starts out with 50 pages of cookie inspiration: a decorated selection of cookies themed for everything from Super Bowl parties to Halloween to baby showers. Each of the them pages notes describing how the decorations were done, and when applicable, the page number of a more in-depth description of a given technique elsewhere in the book. This was, hands-down, my favorite part of the book and definitely gave me some ideas for future baking sessions.

The rest of the book gives tips on how to decorate and on how to streamline the cookie-decorating process, since cookie cutter cookies tend to take longer to put together than drop cookies regardless of how they are decorated. Cookie ingredients, add-ons (like nuts, candies, sprinkles, etc.) and frostings are all covered. There is also a section towards the back that lists stores and websites where you can get specialty cookie cutters and ingredients.

There are a few recipes in the book, but they are not the focus. The authors tend to assume that you have some previous baking experience, with respect to working with dough and rolling out cookies. That said, the instructions for decorations start from the very basics, however, and progress to complex 3D constructions, so all experience levels should find something interesting and useful in here.