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: Viennese Shortbread

The Recipe: Viennese Shortbread from Betty Crocker's The Cooky book

The Verdict: A Cooky success! These are really yummy little cookies. It's a pretty basic shortbread, pressed flat like rippled chips and sandwiched together with some coffee buttercream. Yum. Think of them as a slightly more elegant version of a Coffee Crisp. Did I say yum?

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.