Member Reviews
Bakers looking for special holiday recipes, look no further! The Christmas Baking Cookbook is bursting with a wide variety of elegant holiday desserts from many cultural backgrounds. The cookbook contains sections for cookies, cakes, bread and breakfast treats, pastries, pies and tarts, and custard and other decadent confections. There’s also an appendix that includes recipes for various glazes, frostings, sauces, and pie crusts.
The design of this cookbook is clean and modern, with clear instructions and mouthwateringly gorgeous photos accompanying many of the recipes. Although recipes vary in complexity from accessible to aspirational, this is a book that assumes you already know the finer points of baking, as there are no tips or tricks presented, even for delicate goodies like souffles or macarons. The recipes themselves look delicious and will definitely elevate your holiday dessert table!
Such a lovely cookbook of wonderful Christmas baking recipes. Such beautiful images and delightful selection of recipes. I will definitely be trying a bunch of these soon
Thanks NetGalley and Cider Mill Press for giving me an ARC of this cookbook!
The Christmas Baking Cookbook is a beautiful new book featuring 100 recipes with easy to follow step by step instructions. The recipes include cookies, cakes, breads, pastries, pies, tarts and other confections. Along with the recipes are stunning images of each delicious item. My favourite so far have been the chocolate crinkle cookies, the orange spritz and the peppermint meringues.
This baking book is a must have in the lead up to Christmas and would also make a great stocking filler.
I adore a good book with recipes especially now that I have kiddos to share these with thank you so so much!
Thank you to NetGalley and Cider Press Mill for this ARC.
This is an American cookbook and it shows. It bakes with molasses and kosher salt and the measurements are not converted. There is a conversion table at the back but I don't want to calculate all the time. It would have been a lot better to put the European measurements in each recipe next to the American ones.
The baking instructions are detailed but some recipes are a lot more involved and require more skill than others. Often we only learn in the middle of the recipe that we need piping bags or special pans, like for the Madeleines.
It is sometimes not immediately clear which picture is for which bake, and now and then the picture seems to be missing completely or is at the beginning of the entire section.
This is a problem if you've never heard of the bake in question. There is no explanation given on the name, culture or country of origin of any of the recipes and I knew only half of them. For example, I googled Pepparkakor and it's a Swedish ginger cookie - why not add that info?
That said, I like a lot of the recipes, especially for the cookies, or as we would say, the biscuits, and if I feel up to measurement conversions, I might make some of them for Christmas. Chewy ginger cookies, Pignoli and Orange Spritz come to mind here.
The cover with the classic sugar cookies is enticing and the seasoned baker will find lots to love, if they have no trouble with the measurements.
This is not the book you want to be looking through if you just started a diet. With the holiday season looming, this is the time everyone is already challenged watching their weight. Then I choice to add in this book to look for some new cookies to add to my yearly baking and I found some neat ideas. With some traditional cookies and some influenced by other cultures, this book is full of baking inspiration. Each recipe is clear and easy to understand with well written instructions. The images accompanying each cookie or dessert or bread is sure to have even the most restrained dieter salivating. Personally, I see a few cookies I plan to add this year and a few others that I will compare to my current recipes. For example, we always do chocolate crinkles but red velvet, yum. The red velvet would also add more color to cookie trays.
There is something for everyone as this book includes more than cookies. You have a really wide variety to jump into.
Thanks to NetGalley and Cedar Mill Press for the opportunity to read this ARC.
This is a vast cookbook. Many recipes are seen as traditional Christmas recipes as well as a few twists.
A couple of the recipes has a few ingredients which would be nice to have alternatives for (hard to come by ingredients).
But the instructions are clear and having a photo for every recipe is useful to see and compare the final product.
I liked there was a pie and custards section as these aren't always included in traditional Christmas baking books.
Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for this eARC. I'm looking forward to trying more recipes from this book.
The only thing lacking from this book is the cover - it needs to be much more appealing to be bought as a gift or displayed proudly on shelves. The recipes themselves are interesting and varied. So many to choose from of many different origins. Would try many of these recipes!
A holiday baking cookbook with a recipe for many classic favorites. Some general baking classics as well. The one category of holiday treats that were excluded were candies.
What a deliciously wonderful book to celebrate the holiday season. Lots of delicious recipes that even I could make...yeah, I am not the best cook. So many of these recipes, from your traditional sugar cookie to your chewy gingerbread cookie, can be packed up as a gift or shared on a plate with a loved one.
This book has so many classic Christmas cookie recipes and is an amazing resource for any home baker! There's also many fun twists that I can't wait to try with my own recipes and some really good looking ones that I've never heard from before. There's also so many cake, bread and pastry recipes that I can't wait to try in this upcoming holiday season.
Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this advanced copy, I'm excited to buy it once it's in stores!
Growing up, one of my favorite holiday traditions was baking cookies with my mom and sisters. I have vivid memories of measuring ingredients, mixing them by hand, rolling or dropping dough onto cookie sheets, and eagerly waiting as they baked. As I got older, we kept the tradition alive in my own home, inviting my mom and sisters over, and later sharing it with friends after I moved out of state. This cookbook lets anyone create or continue that tradition, and even expand it to include pies, cakes, breads, and many other treats. My favorite part is that most of the recipes come with photos—while I wish every recipe had one, the number with pictures is much higher than in most other cookbooks. Get this one for yourself, or for someone you’d like to start a new tradition with!
Have a kitchen scale handy for these super precise measurements, then get to baking! With the easy to follow directions, I think I could make anything in this. And most ingredients are in your pantry! Plus, there is a ton more than cookies- breads, pies, scones, and more. This book would make a great gift.
Recipes I have on my planner to make -
Gingerbread cookies
Ginger bread
Apple Streudel
Bolo Rei
Orange Spritz cookies
Bon appetit!
I love the photos and the recipes in this cookbook. They are unique and unlike other Christmas baking cookbooks that I have read previously. I will enjoy looking through this and discovering new recipes.
I hope to try a few of these recipes this holiday season.
Beautifully done!
I received a free copy of, The Christmas Baking Cookbook, by Editors of Cider Mill Press, from the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Christmas is known for baked goods, from cookies, to cakes, this cookbook has so many mouth watering recipes for Christmas. I have never heard of some of these desserts, I cant wait to make them though.
This is truly the perfect holiday baking cookbook! Loads of recipes fill the pages with orientations from across the globe! I came across so many that I want to try! This would make the perfect gift this holiday season!
Some recipes that stood out to me: the chocolate and cinnamon babkas, polvorones, macarons, fiori di mandilore, chocolate and red velvet crinkle cookies, snowballs, alfajores, peanut butter blossoms, peppermint bars, chocolate Yule log and more!
*Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC*
As soon as I saw this I knew I had to give it a look - I love baking and I love Christmas - perfect! This book is really well laid out, the instructions aren’t overly complicated, and there are a number of recipes I’ve not heard of before, as well as your standard Christmas desserts. I love that their are a variety of recipes from different cultures - I can’t wait to give some a go as we had into the festive season
I absolutely love Christmas and love that I got a chance to look at the recipes. It had some truly great recipes that I can’t wait to try out. Some of the recipe were the standard cookie that are seen during the holiday season and some were new that I have not seen before.
I love a good festive baking book and this was just that! Not only does it have simple recipes that are quick and easy enough to make the night before and event, it also has recipes that are more detailed and need more attention. I love a variety!
Simple, elegant, classic. All of these are words that were running through my mind as I flipped through the pages. What I love is that there is not a lot of fanfare. The focus in on the recipe and the picture. The recipes are clear and simple to follow. The pictures are beautifully displayed to truly showcase the treat being shown. I also really liked the recipes for treats from all over the world. There really is something for everyone in these pages: cookies, bars, cakes, breads, breakfast treats, pastries, pies and tarts, custards, and other decadent confections. How to make dough, sauces, creams, icing and the like is covered as well. This is a great reference when you need inspiration and recipes for just about every mood, situation, and taste preference.
I received a complimentary copy from the publisher via NetGalley and all opinions expressed are solely my own, freely given.