King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion: The Essential Cookie Cookbook Book

Drawing on the same commitment to the home-baking community that has earned them hundreds of thousands of dedicated followers, the bakers at King Arthur Flour guide you through hundreds of recipes, revealing the secrets to making your own mouthwatering cookies for any occasion.

MSNBC.com - Gael Fashingbauer Cooper

Home bakers cross some kind of line when we make our first order from Vermont's King Arthur Flour. Suddenly, supermarket staples are no longer good enough for us, and we're ordering special yeast, bread-base mix-ins, and more. Last year King Arthur came out with its Baking Companion cookbook, and now just in time for the holidays, there's The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion (Countryman Press, $30).

The Companions are not small books, and if you've already got the Baking Companion, you might want to think twice about the Cookie Companion. But if you live for an annual cookie exchange, this is your book.

Some of the recipes, such as the delicate Vanilla Dreams, require special ingredients (baker's ammonnia for the Dreams), which are available from King Arthur, naturally. But most don't.

I've made plenty of molasses cookies, but King Arthur's recipe was easy and fast, and produced a light, sweet if not exactly spicy treat. Bakers can choose between a soft and crisp recipe, a nice nod to different tastes.

Homemade graham crackers are not something I've ever contemplated baking before seeing the recipe here. They were fun and easy to make, but lacked the smooth, sweet taste of the grocery-store brands. I won't make them again.

I have more luck with a variety of Christmas cookies. One simple recipe allows the baker to make chocolate, vanilla and fruit-flavored doughs (that last uses dry Jello to flavor and color). Once the basic doughs are ready, they can be shaped into any number of swirls, stripes and checkerboards, and my officemates were quite impressed. Another beautiful-looking treat, the stained-glass cookies shown at the top of this story, were exquisite enough to be ornaments. Unfortunately, people tended to eat the cookie part and throw away the hard-candy center, which tasted fine, but wasn't what they expected in a cookie.

Camelot may have existed for only one brief shining moment, but in the world of baking, King Arthur still reigns supreme.