Christmas Cookies Are for Giving: Recipes, Stories and Tips for Making Heartwarming Gifts

Some lovely cookie recipes... some old, some expanded over time, some good enough to put on my regular cycle of cookie making. I love that there are ideas for wrapping them! The Christmas cookies stories in the back are great, including my own (although time has gone forward and my name has changed). :)

"Like many of you, we want to stay connected to our loved ones and to our friends and family around the world. Christmas cookies are more than just baked goods. They are a tangible and tasty link to our past, our traditions, and our memories. They are gifts hand-made with love especially for their recipient." Kristin Johnson and Mimi Cummins have created a festive book filled with recipes, stories and tips for making unique holiday gifts. Kristin and Mimi lived next door to each other when they were young children and remember the scent of cinnamon, cookies baking and eating cookie dough. Kristin is an award-winning writer who has written about food online and is famous for her cookie-baking. Mimi Cummings is an avid cookbook-reader and recipe tester. She has worked with professional pastry chefs and also created a website for her grandmother's legendary Christmas cookie recipes. Her site is now the most comprehensive repository of Christmas cookie recipes on the Internet. You can also look for favorite Christmas recipes at the Cookie Exchange forum and even submit your favorite cookie recipe. "Christmas Cookies Are For Giving" is filled with cooking advice, Christmas stories, cookie recipes and inspiration. You will find heirloom recipes from family and friends, brand-new original recipes, recipes developed by chefs and even a few recipes from Kristin and Mimi's favorite food promotion organizations. Some of the traditional recipes date back to before Mimi and Kristin's ancestors immigrated to the United States. Each recipe has a full-color photograph to inspire a festive mood and a shopping trip to buy ingredients! Most of the recipes include ingredients you will already have in your kitchen, but you might want to go shopping for mason jars, ribbon and fabric to make the "Cookies in a Jar." Contents: The Giving Christmas Cookie - A poignant story about a woman's memories of Vanillekipferl (Vanilla Crescents) from Vienna and how her recipe leads to bringing Christmas spirit to her community. Christmas Cookie Baking: Tips and Hints -Anyone who is new to baking will appreciate these tips. There are also tips for using the best ingredients and using insulated cookie sheets, which I can also say are highly recommended. Christmas Cookie Recipes - The recipe for "Vanillekipferl" made with blanched almonds, sugar and vanilla. This recipe also shows you how to make vanilla sugar. There are recipes for everyone from the gourmet coffee connoisseur to art lovers. Children will love the "Cathedral Windows" and "Butterball Santas." Coffee lovers will enjoy the "Walnut Cappuccino" or "Cherry" Biscotti. "Cranberry Spice Bread" is perfect for shipping to friends and family. Just wait until you see the picture for the "Chocolate Cranberry Holiday Bars" and "Pistachio Cookie Tree." The recipe for "Speculaci" includes a story and information on how to paint cookies. You can use the Royal Icing on pg. 130. Christmas Cookie Gift Presentation - Del

This cookbook not only gives you many wonderful cookie recipes for Christmas, baking tips, how to pack and ship these goodies for sending to friends and family locally or far away, and how to prepare Gift Cookies in a Jar", but the book also begins with a wonderful heartwarming "Dickensian" style story set in modern times, "The Giving Christmas Cookie". This is a story of a family with the Grandmother in a "Home" stricken with Alzheimers, and how a very loving woman who also resides in the "Home" reaches out to the daughter and grandaughter of this woman to bring them back together making Christmas a happy time again for the ailing Grandmother, and also by making the special Christmas Cookies, it brings happiness and joy back into the other ill and lonely peoples lives who also reside at the Home, even if it's just for one day.Now for the recipes. They are terrific! So many favorites from simpler times when making Christmas cookies was a family affair; a joyous time between mother and daughter, mother and son, or the whole family pitching in. The recipes are created by the authors; recipes from average people with wonderful stories to tell about their experiences in life with making Christmas cookies with their families, and recipes contributed from commerical food companies, and food organizations. I highly recommend this touching and very informative book. It's one you will pass down to your children and grandchildren. Give this to people you love, and give it to yourself. It's one of the best gifts you'll receive this year.Reviewed by Diana Baker WoodallDianasDesserts.Com - A Website For Home Bakers

I recently got this book and read it in one sitting. It is different from most cookie cookbooks because it includes not only great recipes, but charming stories about family traditions and the cookie recipes themselves. For people who don't bake as a family tradition it makes you want to start! I most recently made the recipe for bar cookies and shared them with family and friends and they were a big hit. More than 1 person confessed to having the cookies for breakfast because they could not wait until later to have more. The book itself is nice quality and has nice pictures. The recipes are easy to understand so you can make unique cookies without any fancy equipment. I plan on giving the book as a hostess gift for Christmas parties, for a secret santa gift at work, and for teachers gifts - afterall who doesn't love cookies?

For all year round, this book is a gift that keeps on giving: The poignant story, the delicious recipes, and the beautiful photos of the finished product. This book is jammed packed with something worth giving. It's forgiving and for giving.

This book would make a lovely hostess gift, present for a shut-inor gift for Martha Stewart devotees who, perhaps, would like to find another domestic guru. From front cover to back, a reader harkens to days gone by. One can almost smell the cookies baking.----Reviewed by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, award winning author of Harkening, a book that includes a couple of Christmas stories of another kind.