Cookies Year-Round: 50 Recipes for Every Season and Celebration [With Built in Easel]

""Cookie baking is both art and science,"" writes author and New York Daily News food editor Black, and she effectively marries the two in her compilation of 50 easy-to-follow cookie and bar recipes. Selections range from the classic, such as Chocolate Chip, Gingerbread Men and Black & White to seasonal fare such as Apple Cobblers and Pecan Triangles. Black's approach to each cookie or bar is straightforward, and she covers every aspect of cookie-making, including tips for packing and shipping. The distinguishing feature of the book, its flip-top design, is also its most frustrating: though it allows the book to act as its own easel, standing upright for easy mid-baking reference, it also makes navigating the book a chore. With no index or complete, centralized table of contents, would-be cookie makers are forced to flip through the entire book, turning it this way and that to find the right recipe. Amid a sea of cookie cookbooks, most of which offer more recipes and an easy-to-use format, this entry comes up short.