The French Cookie Book: Classic and Contemporary Recipes for Easy and Elegant Cookies

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Summary: They're all here. And they're not as hard as you think!
Review: I'm not very familiar with "real" French cookies, so I didn't know how hard or easy they'd be. It turns out that they'd probably have been a lot more work without this book. The author gives very clear line drawings exactly when they're most needed, tells you exactly what equipment you need up front, explains how to use the equipment you're probably not all that familiar with, and gives beautifully clear directions.

The only troubles with the book is that some of the recipes are much longer to make than is clear from the first reading (the dough softens quicker than I expected, needs to chill 10 times, etc.), and it's basically impossible to plan in advance how long one of these batches will take to put together. An indicator of this would really have helped a lot.

But they're SO good; it's amazing how much better cookies taste with just a little more time put into them and with a brilliant French chef's advice.

Bon appetit!

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Summary: The Lost World of Cookies
Review: The authors, sadly, seem to be correct: fine cookies are a mostly lost art, even in France. I have read descriptions of and seem pictures of displays of cookies in sweet shops in Paris about a century ago. They contain a bewildering display of massive amounts of cookies in endless varieties. Today, these displays are almost extinct. This book is probably your last chance to learn how to produce these cookies, both for the amateur home cook and the professional. The authors seem to have done quite a bit of research and trial-and-error, as most of the recipes seem to be revivals and recreations as opposed to a recording of how they were actually done in production. As a result, the recipes have much more in common than they would have if they were the actual, original recipes.

The key to all these different types is variation. In this book, there are many dozens of cookies, all very different in look and taste, yet all are based on only 7 basic recipes. With minor alterations in forming and flavors, you get a totally different cookie from the same recipe. Once you can make the basic recipe in a chapter, you can make all of the other cookies in the chapter, which is usually one or two dozen more. The seven types are: creamed sugar and butter, meringue, almond paste, sponge cake, tuiles, pâte sucrée, and puff pastry (yes, the authors expect you to make your own). I should also point out that these are traditional, fancy French patisserie; you will not find chocolate chips, oatmeal raisin cartwheels, or gingerbread men.

The book also has several unusual instructions. Some recipes require a resting period of a few hours or even overnight. Whipping egg whites requires that you go past the stiff peak stage, a no-no in my book. It also calls for baking on a piece of newspaper, and wetting down the paper after baking to get the cookies off. They may seem odd, but each one worked as advertised, and you are well advised to follow the directions to the letter; attempts to skip them and do it the "normal" way will meet with failure. You will also need a substantial collection of unusual and specialty baking pans which are hard to find, if you can find them at all. I also find the instructions for tempering chocolate to be inadequate, and used a standard method for tempering chocolate. In the chapter on pâte sucrée, one is instructed to use the "smear" method of dough, it specifies ammonium carbonate and not baking soda, and it states that if the temperature is above 75, you can not do these recipes (the same author remark applies to the chapter on puff pastry). It also instructs you to wet the baking pan before putting down the dough so it stays glued down. The chapter on puff pastry has a good recipe for using up scraps along with recommended recipes that can use it. It also has a good and reliable recipe for chocolate puff pastry.

There are several nice touches to the recipes. All have a specific list of equipment that you need; however, they only list the baking sheets and preparation, and not other equipment like food processors or blenders. Each recipe also has a specific amount of time that you can store the cookies; some will last a week, while others must be eaten the same day, while frozen, uncooked dough will last longer. The procedure of each recipe is also extremely detailed, and leaves nothing to chance; in this respect, this book is exemplary and would be a good template for anyone contemplating writing a cookbook. Some recipes take up 2 pages. Also worthy of note is that the recipe amounts are listed in weight, as well as volume.

The first part of each chapter also features a rather extensive primer on the techniques featured in the recipes for that chapter. The beginning of each chapter also features a very handy and useful to index to all of the recipes for that chapter. This book is a massive tome of 500 pages, including an impressive 90 pages just on references and detailed procedures. Here, for example, you will find a complete explanation of the brief and inadequate procedures of tempering chocolate in the recipes. The explanation and diagrams for making a cornet is hopelessly wrong. It has a rare explanation on the proper use of the pastry bag. It also calls for Vaseline as a pan coating (I would advise against this; try non-stick cooking spray with lecithin instead).

Best of all, every one of the cookies I tried were wonderful and worth the effort, and most were not harder to make than ordinary cookies from standard cookbooks; in some cases, they were easier since this book had the details missing from most recipes. This is a reliable and extensive resource for traditional, French cookies. In this book, I found several years worth of cookie baking (including several for that neglected cookie gun hidden at the back of the cabinet), and I recommend it highly.