Rating: 
Summary: my favourite: crème de couille
Review: This book is targeted at all those who would to cook better but with limited time and a tight budget. I can say honestly
having read over 3000 books this one is #326 on my list. Not bad for a book that tells you quick delicious recipes for such favourites as chicken à la chinese, cajun cheese burgers, or my all-time favourite: crème de couille! If you only want one cookbook this is it!
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Summary: Christmas all year
Review: This is a treasure trove of wonderful cookie recipes. Pecan crispies are light and elegant. Thumbprint, Russian teacake, meringues and sugar cookies are holiday favorites. Shamrock cookies become witches' fingers for Halloween with just omission of food coloring and a different rolling technique. Almond butter, French lace, nut crunch cookies. Of course, there are hundreds more--your favorites, no doubt! I recommend buying this book if you bake, or if you hope to. But I will add, it's not the "original" Betty Crocker cookie book. My mother has that--from the 30's or 40's I think, smaller and with fewer recipes, but awesome. This version has vivid color photographs so you can drool--or occupy your kids with just visuals--while you consider what to make next!
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Summary: I love this cookie book!
Review: This is the best cookie book I have ever found. 1. First and foremost, the recipes. Simply put, they turn out right every time and yield delicious results. This is the only baking book I have ever found that provides consistently reliable results on every recipe I've tried. No guess work, no hit and miss. What more could you ask for? Plus, there is a wide variety of recipes here - every kind of cookie you could hope to find. 2. The format. Lots of pictures, with the name of the recipe and page where it can be found clearly identified for each picture. Also, the book is divided into chapters that make sense. The book has a hard cover, to withstand years of kitchen abuse and to make the book readily identifiable on the shelf, and a spiral binding, so the pages lay flat. Bravo to the publisher for making this a very usable, practical cookbook. Plus, the pictures are wonderful. They were taken when the goal of food photography was to make the food look like actual food, not high art. These cookies look like something that could come from your own oven. 3. The nostalgia. I remember so many of these recipes from my childhood, and you probably will too. It was so fun to reminisce about the various recipes and the memories they invoked.
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Summary: So excited to find this!!!
Review: We did not have this book, but we did enjoy many of the cookies from my mom's Betty Crocker(white and red gingham) cookbook she got on her anniversary in 1969. It included many of the favorites we made that I see here. I got a newer version of the gingham cookbook when I first got married in 1996, but many favorites were missing like Chinese Almond cookies(our first Christmas cookie baked each season!). Maybe it's because lately people just don't have the time or inclination to share this wonderful holiday tradition of cookie baking from scratch--it was certainly a much thinner section than my mothers edition(also covered in butter spots, flour, and falling out of the book;-) I am so excited to find this and expect it will be a more thourough book full of those favorite Christmas recipes. I am buying two(one for me now and one for my daughter when she is a little older). What an exciting tradition. By reading these reviews, I hope whoever printed this understands what a wonderful service they did to our beloved holiday traditions and hearts. Bake on gals
Rating:
Summary: A Treasure for Bakers
Review: When I was doing my holiday shopping, I was overjoyed to see that Betty Crocker's Cooky Book had been reprinted for the 2002 holiday season. Betty Crocker's Cooky Book was originally printed in 1963. Yes, it's cooky, not today's cookie. The 2002 reprint includes only two short paragraphs of introduction on the title page. The new paragraphs provide warnings about today's ingredients and food safety concerns. They encourage you to ask your mother or grandmother how to make them if you don't understand the ingredients or the recipes. What a great way to share a family heritage, by baking cookies together! The cookbook is divided into 6 sections: Cooky Primer, Holiday Cookies, Family Favorites, Quick 'N Easy Cookies, Company Best Cookies, and Betty Crocker's Best Cookies. The Cooky Primer section includes instructions on how to "measure flour by dipping," Necessary Utensils (including a "rotary egg beater"), Baking Hints, and a Q&A section which covers self-rising flour, correcting cooky dough, and how to prevent soft cooky dough. The Cooky Primer section includes a color picture at the bottom of each page, showing the finished cookies and brownies. On page 11 of the Cooky Primer is a recipe for Butterscotch Brownies. This recipe is my husband's favorite. All the recipe calls for is butter, brown sugar, an egg, flour, baking powder, salt, vanilla, and walnuts. This brownie recipe spells out the secret to baking perfect brownies: "Do not overbake!". My Uncle Glen is a commercial chef, and he taught me that little gem at the precocious age of 10. These brownies have a wonderful butterscotch flavor, and come out of the oven chewy and golden brown. In the Heritage Cookies section, I baked the Old-Fashioned Sour Cream cookies on page 79. This recipe is a little more complex, it calls for shortening, sugar, an egg, vanilla, flour, baking powder, soda (that's baking soda, not tonic), salt, nutmeg, and "commercial sour cream." These little cookies retain their shape beautifully, without using parchment paper! Their delicate texture is accented with a touch of nutmeg, making them a wonder for lovers of spice cakes. One batch made 53 individual cookies. The authors truly saved the best for last with this cookbook. The final section, Betty Crocker's Best Cookies, features favorite cookie recipes over time. Betty Crocker's time begins with Hermits from 1880! Starting with 1880, the cookie recipes move in 10-year increments. For example, 1890-1900 Cinnamon Jumbles. 1920-1930 Brownies. 1930-1935 Molasses Crinkles. These heritage recipes are accented by historical highlights and humorous anecdotes such as "the first brownies were a fallen chocolate cake." This section is made for cookbook lovers of all ages. If you ever wondered what children ate for cookies in 1900 when they got home from school, you'll find your answer here. Cinnamon Jumbles!
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