The Cooky Book: Zimtsterne

These were another Christmas cookie that I'm finally just catching up with now. I know, I know. The Cooky Book describes them as "a crisp, spicy cooky with a chiny glazed top. A favorite of Switzerland." Hmm. Well, if the Swiss like 'em they have to be good, no? They're okay. That's about it. I didn't really find them spicy enough to be interesting, but they didn't taste bad. They did have a weirdly flaky quality to them that I didn't particularly enjoy. I liked the fact that they're brushed with egg, because shiny is always fun. So okay, but not a Christmas treat that anyone, Swiss or otherwise, would likely look forward to year after year. If it's any indication, I had a load of these left after Christmas was long over and ended up throwing them out.

The Cooky Book: Cream Filbert Candy Cookies

Betty Crocker advises that these resemble creamed filberts, otherwise known as mothball candies. To which anyone under the age of 100 is probably saying "huh?" I've never had a mothball candy, nor do I want to. But these are pretty tasty little cookies.

If I were to make these again I'd skip the festive decorative sugar because it's too crunchy and distracts from the yummyness of these cookies. They're rich and creamy little balls with filberts in the middle. They're quite buttery, but other than that, I can't really account for what sets them apart from any regular vanilla cookie -- I think the word "cream" in the title is making them taste better than they actually are. Either way, these are a hit, not a miss.

The Cooky Book: Pecan Spice Cookies

The Recipe: Pecan Spice Cookies from Betty Crocker's The Cooky Book.

The Verdict: The Cooky Book has been hitting 'em out of the park lately. These are super good -- very spicy, but not so overpowering that kids won't eat them (or at least my kids, though they may have eccentric tastes). With nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon and cloves there's a lot of taste packed into these little dynamos.

My kids are also weirdly obsessed with any cookie with a nut stuck on top. I'm not sure why, but I'll go with these. These have chopped pecans inside and also a pecan half on top, so they're not school-friendly, but are a great non-school snack for nut fans.

The Cooky Book: Peanut Butter Cookies

The Recipe: Peanut Butter Cookies from Betty Crocker's The Cooky Book

The Verdict: Do I even have to tell you how these turned out. Classic PB cookies with the criss-cross on the top, you can't go wrong. The Cooky Book boasts that these are "So rich, good with anything: a favourite with men and children." A favourite with men and children? Well, I am neither a man nor a child and I thought they were pretty fab.

This is the most basic, flawless peanut butter cookie recipe ever and I can't really fathom how anyone could improve on it. There are a couple of variations in here, one with honey added in and another with jelly thumbprints. I was tempted to do another batch of the jellies, but with Christmas coming up and PB being taboo in school lunches I elected to move on. Maybe when I get through the book I can go back. Catch up with me in a decade or so.

The Cooky Book: Chocolate Crinkles

The Recipe: Chocolate Crinkles from Betty Crocker's Cooky Book

The Verdict: These are good, but off. It's a fairly standard crinkle recipe, with the chocolate, the icing sugar, all that jazz. They look fudgey and delicious, but they're lacking... something.

Full disclosure: Martha Stewart has a recipe for almost identical chocolate crinkles. Martha's crinkles, however, are mind-blowing. I realize I could look up the recipe and compare the ingredients, but I'm willing to bet that Martha's contain a whole heck of a lot more chocolate. On first bite, Betty Crocker's crinkles are tasty and brownie-like, but the more you eat, the more hollow they taste. Since chocolate cookies are a rare occasion on the land of the Cooky Book, this makes this recipe tragic. I ended up crumbling the last few over homemade vanilla pudding instead of eating them whole. That's how sad it was.

The Cooky Book: Snickerdoodles

The Recipe: Snickerdoodles from Betty Crocker's The Cooky Book

The Verdict: Thank the fates for Mrs. Ronald Anfinson of Benson, Minnesota, the creator of this, the original recipe for snickerdoodles. This is the true snickerdoodle recipe and there have obviously been many variations and riffs on it since Mrs. Anfinson was on the scene. I googled Mrs. Anifson and couldn't even find so much as her first name. All that comes up is this recipe, attributed to her genius.

I'm not sure what makes snickerdoodles so awesome, but awesome they are. They aren't a fancy cookie, just a crackly little morsel with a cinnamon coating, but they are quite magical. Crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside, they are a classic. Classic.

The Cooky Book: Lemon Cheese Pressed Cookies

The Recipe: Lemon Cheese Pressed Cookies from Betty Crocker's The Cooky Book

The Verdict: Lemon cheese. There's something about those two words together that just sounds super gross to me. Lemon cheese. Of course, the cheese in question in this recipe is cream cheese, not some inappropriate-for-dessert variety, but still, the very words make me think of lemony gouda or something equally unappealing.

So, much to my surprise, these little cookies are quite delicious, despite the fact that I generally do try to avoid cream cheese at all costs (I realize this contradicts my above assertion that cream cheese is an acceptable cookie ingredient. It just isn't usually acceptable to me as an incredibly picky individual). The lemon flavor is pretty intense and the cheese gives a little bit of heft and creamy-ness without turning them into mini cheese cakes. The cookie press was, as usual, a complete pain in the ass -- so much in fact that I actually injured myself using it, almost losing a finger nail. By the end of the batch I took to just molding the cookies into little balls.

Despite the fact that these are pretty tasty and very lemony, no one in my family would eat them. My son wouldn't even try one. He's only three and the very mention of lemons and cheese made him gag. Also, the cheese made them a little bit unstable, which made them go a little rank after a while. Which wouldn't have been a problem if my children had agreed to eat them, but you know how it is.

The Cooky Book: Chocolate Spritz

The Recipe: Chocolate Spritz cookies from Betty Crocker's The Cooky Book

The Substitutes: Butter for shortening. I also opted for the chocolate variety so my family would eat them.

The Verdict: Pretty yummy, but I don't really see what makes spritz so special. These are a pretty basic cookie, pressed through a cookie press. So, they look pretty (or, uh, should look pretty) and taste okay, if not particularly unique.

A word about the cookie press: what a pain. I didn't invest in a particularly expensive press, which may be part of the problem, but it was really difficult to get them looking right. Sure it's fancy -- and I do like me some fancy -- but not truly worth the effort.

The Cooky Book: Chinese Almond Cookies

The Recipe: Chinese Almond Cookies from Betty Crocker's The Cooky Book

The Substitutions: Butter for shortening.

The Verdict: If you're trying to watch your figure, these guys should be avoided at all costs. There is A LOT of butter in this recipe (or shortening if you're going with the recipe as written). A lot. And I'm usually not one to balk at excessive amounts of butter, but in the case of these bland little cookies, the impending heart attack just isn't worth it. I had high hopes for these guys because of the relatively large amount of almond extract added in, but they just aren't almond-y enough. In fact, you can barely taste the extract at all.

So you're left with a boring, greasy cookie with a tease of almond taste. Naturally, my kids love them, but I'm handing them out stingily, because even a kid doesn't need that much butter.

The Cooky Book: Moravian Ginger Cookies

The Recipe: Moravian Ginger Cookies from Betty Crocker's The Cooky Book

The Substitutions: Butter for shortening

The Verdict: I wasn't expecting much from these guys. They required almost no butter, which in my mind does not make for a good cookie. They also are supposed to be "paper thin." This meant that they were a bit of a nightmare to roll. The un-buttery dough was hard to work with and required a lot of pressure to get to that paper thin consistency. In other words, they were a complete pain in the ass to make.

But it was worth it! The ones that I managed to get ultra-thin were crispy and cracker-like, the ones that were a bit thicker were more like gingerbread. Either way, they were really tasty. We even had some friends over who are true ginger cookie enthusiasts and they loved them. So much in fact, that my cookie jar was empty within a couple of days.

The Cooky Book: Filled Cookies

The Recipe: Filled Cookies from Betty Crocker's The Cooky Book

The Substitutions: Butter for shortening

The Verdict: These were pleasant, but troublesome. To keep things simple, I chose to make the turnover style, rather than cut out individual shapes and make cookie sandwiches. What I ended up with were some empanada style cookies, that were made out of straight-up buttery cookie dough rather than pastry.

I rolled these guys a little thicker than I should have, seeing as I ended up with almost half the number of cookies that the recipe was supposed to yield. This wasn't a problem in itself in that they baked up just fine, but the finished cookies got pretty moist and soggy after sitting in my cookie jar for a couple of days. I don't know if this is because of the thickness or because of the filling, but either way, they got a bit swampy over time.

Still, they're pretty delicious. I made the pineapple filling, which is basically a pineapple apple sauce with some nutmeg thrown in. Very tasty, even if they don't keep for long.

The Cooky Book: Mary's Sugar Cookies

The Recipe: Mary's Sugar Cookies from Betty Crocker's The Cooky Book

The Substitutions: To prevent boredom, I threw in a package of Skor bits.

The Verdict: And the battle of the sugar cookies in ON! Okay, not really, but since the Betty Crocker peeps felt the need to put in two back to back sugar cookie recipes, I can't help but compare. This recipe, provided by a lady named Mary Herman (who, a Google search reveals, worked in the Betty Crocker offices, answering fan mail as Betty Crocker herself!), uses icing sugar instead of regular sugar and also has some almond extract in it (though the Skor bits pretty much canceled it out). Now that I've tasted Mary's Sugar Cookies and Ethel's Sugar Cookies, I have to proclaim Ethel the winner.

Not that Mary's cookies aren't tasty. They're less substantial though (Ethel's are more like a shortbread), and kind of greasy, though that might be a result of the Skor bits. Though, that doesn't mean I can stop eating them though. Because I, know, like cookies.

The Cooky Book: Refrigerator Filled Cookies

The Recipe: Refrigerator Filled Cookies from Betty Crocker's The Cooky Book.

The Substitutions: butter instead of shortening.

The Verdict: These are essentially vanilla refrigerator cookies filled with some fruit and nuts. Betty Crocker tells us that they have an "island shape," which is true, but they look a little less seamless than the ones pictured in the book. Still, these guys were pretty tasty and actually disappeared quite quickly.

I chose to make the fruit filling with dried apricots. I figured that would decrease the gross-out potential substantially, since the other options were mincemeat (ick!), dates, figs or raisins (all also icky). The apricot filling was actually pretty delicious, but I was a little afraid of overfilling the cookies and having some kind of sticky oven disaster, so I held back. This was my mistake. I think they could have taken more filling, which would have contributed to their deliciousness greatly.

The cookies themselves are a little on the boring side, which wouldn't have mattered if I had filled them properly. Either way, this is a pretty good recipe, providing you avoid the mincemeat.

The Cooky Book: Peanut Butter Honey Cookies

The Recipe: Peanut Butter Honey Cookies from Betty Crocker's The Cooky Book

The Substitutions: Butter for shortening. I also ran out of honey, so there was about 1/3 cup of honey topped up with maple syrup.

The Verdict: So painfully boring. I thought these guys would be tasty, what with the peanut butter and the honey. But no, they're just really really boring. Absolutely no one in my family has been eating these and I can't even send them to school because of the high peanut butter content. They're so simple and should be so great, but they're just a snooze. Boo, Betty Crocker. Boo.

The Cooky Book: Shamrock Cookies

The Recipe: Shamrock Cookies from Betty Crocker's The Cooky Book

The Substitutions: butter for shortening

The Verdict: I was truly expecting these little nuggets of Irish-ness to be the Shamrock Shake of cookies. Then I remembered that Shamrock Shakes are too sweet and never quite minty enough. With that said, these little green mounds are indeed the Shamrock Shake of cookies.

I made these a week early for St. Patrick's Day so that the Irish-y anticipation could build. They were so boring in taste thought that I ended up sticking all five dozen of them in the freezer so that they could just be taken to work on the day itself (all cookies are appreciated in offices, even boring, barely minty ones). I put in the maximum required amount of peppermint extract and the mint factor barely registers. Also, it should be noted that they're made with icing sugar rather than regular granulated sugar, which makes the texture really soft and flaky. My final complaint is that they're just a pain to make, with each cooking having to be individually molded. Pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? Not even close.

The Cooky Book: Oatmeal Coconut Crispies

The Recipe: Oatmeal Coconut Crispies from Betty Crocker's The Cooky Book

The Substitutions: Butter for shortening

The Verdict: Surprisingly awesome. I was afraid that these were going to be another exercise in dullness, but they're really really good. The texture and consistency (and for the most part, the taste) is reminiscent of Dad's brand oatmeal cookies, or at least that's what my tastebud memory is telling me (obviously, I don't buy a lot of store-bought cookies). Which means that they're crunchy and hard, rather than soft and tender. And this is just fine with me, because that extra crunch translates into coconutty deliciousness.

The Cooky Book: Cinnamon Slices

The Recipe: Cinnamon Slices from Betty Crocker's The Cooky Book

The Substitutions: Butter for shortening, per usual. I also opted to add cinnamon, turning regular Vanilla Refrigerator Cookies into Cinnamon Slices.

The Verdict: Booooooooring! Wow, these cookies are a total snoozefest. While the first two refrigerator cookies I did were taste sensations, these are beyond boring. And that's with the addition of cinnamon -- I can't even imagine how lame these would be without it. As a result, no one is reaching for these. It might be a while until I get to my next Cooky Book entry, because the taste of these things does not justify the butter content.

The Cooky Book: Ginger Almond Cookies

The Recipe: Ginger Almond Cookies from Betty Crocker's The Cooky Book

The Substitutes: Butter for shortening

The Verdict: Another success from the Refrigerator Cookies section of the book! These are basically really delicious ginger snaps with some almonds thrown in for good measure. They're buttery and have just the right amount of spice in them. I will warn you, this recipe makes a lot of cookies (I ended up with almost eight dozen), but that just means that you'll have plenty to share. Highly, highly recommended. I will agree with the little note that appears in the recipe: "A taste delight for everyone!"

The Cooky Book: Coconut Apricot Strips

The Recipe: Coconut Apricot Strips from Betty Crocker's The Cooky Book

The Substitutions: Butter for shortening, plus I used peach/passionfruit jam in place of pineapple jam, which is seemingly impossible to find.

The Verdict: Hmm. The recipe, which advertises these guys as being "fancy and oh-so-rich!" advises you to serve them the same day you make them. Which is completely essential, seeing as they barely survived from me making them in the afternoon to being served in the evening. My guests described them as being tasty, but "unstable."

The cookie is essentially a layer of crust, a layer of jam, and a layer of coconut meringue. The crust gets pretty soggy and the meringue, which I got nice and fluffy, falls pretty flat once you add in the coconut. As a result, you get a bar that needs to be eaten with a fork (or spoon) and is really really intense in taste. These are definitely not a keeper and I'm officially glad to be officially finished with the bar cookie section of this book.

The Cooky Book: Chocolate Refrigerator Cookies

The Recipe: Chocolate Refrigerator Cookies from Betty Crocker's The Cooky Book

The Substitutions: Butter for shortening, skipped out on the melted chocolate frosting.

The Verdict: Delicious! This article was submitted to Betty Crocker by Mrs. George Dow from Owatonna, MN. I love it when they include these details and I also think that sometimes these civilian bakers have better taste than the actual Betty Crocker test kitchen bakers. Anyway, these cookies are near perfect. There is a boatload of butter in these cookies, so they're essentially chocolate shortbreads. Which mean they get no complaints from me. None at all.

I skipped the frosting (which is just melted chocolate) because these guys are rich enough on their own and there's quite a bit of cocoa in them so they're plenty chocolatey. Extra chocolate on top elevates them from the "snack" category into the "dessert" category too, and I didn't want to restrict their usage. This recipe yields about 5 dozen cookies, but they're pretty small, so it's not out of control. And quite honestly, even if it yielded 10 dozen, they're so good that our family would probably finish them off before they went stale.