When I received this cookbook, 1001 Cookie Recipes for Christmas a few years ago I was very excited. I usually bake up a storm every year for Christmas and am always looking for new ideas. This looked like just the book for me.
This recipe book is written by Gregg R. Gillespie and is copyrighted 1995.
There are 419 pages of cookie recipes, complete with pictures and 9 additional pages for the index.
The recipes are listed alphabetically, ranging from Abernathy Biscuits which have caraway seeds in them, clear through to Zwieback. Of course there is everything in-between including all the standbys such as chocolate chip - approximately 20 different recipes. (Depending on if you want it in cookie form, bar form, drop form, etc.) Peanut Butter - about 11 different variations, Oatmeal - about 17 different variations.
There are unusual recipes, such as potato chip cookies, measles cookies, cracker brownies and Nurnbergers. There are recipes that would be native to many different countries around the world. There is every variation you can imagine and some you'd rather not.
There are 2-3 recipes per page, typically, with a picture for each, along with the ingredients and instructions. Each recipes lists how many cookies to expect per batch, along with the total time.
I have tried a number of recipes from this book over the past several years and with the exception of one recipe, I have been disappointed in each one. Following the directions as written, I have found each recipe to be too dry. The one exception from this book is the Zucchini Bars II recipe on page 418.
Each year when I begin planning what to bake for Christmas I still get out this book and thumb through it because it gives me ideas of what I want to make. It's easy because all the cookies are here in one book. But I don't use these recipes; I use my own, or get another recipe I know to be useful.
Possibly the best part of this cookbook is the index. You can locate recipes by cookie type. Bars, drop, formed, nonedible, refrigerator or rolled. The second index is by ingredient. You can look up a recipe by ingredient such as chocolate, orange peel, mincemeat, amaretto, etc. I do like this feature very much.
I hate to not recommend this cookbook, but honestly it has been a disappointment to me. I like to be fair when rating anything so I will give the author one star for effort. It would have taken a great amount of time to get all these recipes together, take a picture (albeit a Plain Jane picture) and then put them altogether, alphabetically no less. I will give the author one more star for the good recipes that are in the book, even though I have only found one. But I can give no more stars. And the bottom line, I guess I cannot recommend this cookbook. Sorry.
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