Sunset Holiday Cook Book. - book reviews

Sunset, Dec, 1989

Sunset Holiday COOK BOOK More creativity and production take place in the kitchen during the holidays than many of us realize. Counting baking, candymaking, and preparation of dishes for main courses, how many really good holiday recipes are there" Here's a clue: over the last five years, December Sunsets have averaged 31.

And here's our answer: the Sunset Holiday Cook Book, a 96-page publication that came out last year and sells for $6.95, contains 175 outstanding ones. All of them came from Sunset Magazine.

Of these recipes, 65 make up menus for holiday entertaining. The other 110 are in the baking and candymaking domain.

Intended to be given as gifts, the baked goods and candies are impressively varied. Recipes include numerous simple drop and bar cookies, but also more complicated projects. For example, easy baking becomes architectural when you build the gingerbread log cabin for a centerpiece at a children's party.

First you bake all the required logs and roof sections; next, you put them together according to specifications and scatter a drift of powdered sugar snow over the roof and surrounding landscape. The cabin holds up for several days to a week, and then it should be eaten--before roof sag sets in.

This month's cover displays a clever Christmas baking idea (actually, it's an old-timer revisited). Instructions for our people cookies--in two flavors--are on page 64. In the same article, you'll also find a recipe for Christmas tree bread.