Christmas Baking (Editors of Cider Mill Press)

This book is an impressive collection of 100 Christmas baking recipes to choose from when preparing sweet treats for Christmas. Many recipes are classics like the gingerbread cakes, the snowman cookies, stollen, panettone and much more. Others have a modern twist, such as the matcha Christmas trees. There is something for every taste, from simple cookies to mouthwatering desserts.

The recipes are well explained and complete. For the European bakers, there is a little bit more work for quantities conversion from US to our unit of measures. But it is worth the effort.

This book is like a recipe collection, a baker’s notebook. Personally I like to know more about the authors and the story behind the recipes, especially as the collection is very international and has a lot of interesting Christmas cultures involved. This was something I missed a little and I hope a future edition of this book will bring a little more of that.

With its beautiful pictures, the book brings the recipes to life and we can almost smell the delicious spicy aroma of Christmas baking. It is a beautiful book full of inspiration in the run up to Christmas and I am sure no reader will open this book without making plans to try the recipes…And, to borrow from its lovely cover … ’tis the season.