The Perfect Cookie

This latest book from ATK is an irresistible offering of 250 cookie, brownie, and bar recipes. A read through the comprehensive techniques section will inspire new and seasoned bakers alike. The various types of cookie-mixing methods explained here, including creaming and reverse creaming, are themselves worth the price of the book. Recipes are exacting and can sometimes feel overly complicated, although there are simple recipes throughout, including for lemon sour-cream cookies, coffee-toffee cookies, and old-fashioned applesauce cookies. A chapter on rolled, shaped, and pressed cookies features unusual combinations of flavor and texture, such as hazelnut lemon curd thumbprints, fudgy peanut butter mousse cups, and cornmeal orange cookies. Twenty types of brownies and blondies, including fudge brownies and butterscotch meringue bars, should satisfy many tastes. There is a terrific selection of bar cookie recipes, which include reliable recipes for classics such as lemon bars and cheesecake bars, as well as for the more innovative pear-cherry streusel bars and white-chocolate raspberry bars. This book wouldn’t be complete without a chapter on Christmas cookies, and the recipes included here do not disappoint: old favorites such as linzer sandwich cookies are well represented, along with new inventions such as eggnog snickerdoodles. This is a must-have for cookie lovers. [em](Aug.) [/em]