The basics of cookie making

A quick word on how this book is organized: The recipes are grouped by the type of cookie, or more specifically, by how the cookie is made. Drop cookies are formed by dropping the dough onto a cookie sheet with a spoon. Rolled cookies are stamped into various shapes from dough that is rolled out. Bar cookies are baked in baking pans and cut into bars. And so on. A few treats at the end of the book don't even require an oven. The book is organized this way because it allows you to easily locate the recipes you feel most comfortable trying or have the appropriate equipment for. There are helpful tips for making each type of cookie in their respective chapters. For those bakers, however, who care less about cookie type and more about what's inside—say, chocolate or lemon or no nuts—there's a listing of cookies by flavor at the back of the book on pages 130 to 131. Use this list for inspiration and to satisfy your cravings!

Cookie-baking guidelines
Here are the key steps and rules for successful cookie baking. Read them over a few times, then embed them in your cookie-baking routine.

• Before you start, make sure you have all the necessary ingredients and enough time for pre- and post-baking tasks. Many recipes require prep work, such as toasting nuts, grating citrus zest, and chopping chocolate, before you can actually start assembling the dough. Some doughs need to be chilled for an hour or more before baking. And a few bar cookies shouldn't be left to cool for too long after they come out of the oven; they must be cut while still warm or else they become too hard or crumbly to slice.

• Preheat the oven for at least fifteen minutes before baking.

• You'll achieve the most consistent results when you bake one cookie sheet at a time on a rack in the middle of the oven. If you want to use two sheets to move the job along (after first checking to make sure the recipe suggests it), place the racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven with at least four inches between them so heat can circulate. Ideally, the bottom rack should be at the top of the lower third of the oven and the top rack at the bottom of the top third. When using two sheets, it's important to rotate them from top to bottom and front to back about halfway through baking to allow the cookies to bake evenly. Do it carefully, yet quickly, because the oven temperature will drop the longer the oven door is open. If one sheet of cookies is done before the other, pull it from the oven.

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From Christmas Cookies: 50 Recipes to Treasure for the Holiday Season. Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.  Copyright © 2008 by Lisa B. Zwirn. All rights reserved.  Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

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