The 6 Best Baking Cookbooks For Easy Holiday Cookies.

Joanne has been baking professionally for 25 years. A talented recipe and product developer, she has crafted desserts for hotels, restaurants, and gourmet grocers across the world. Joanne developed Cookie Chips® Baking Mixes for bakers who wants professional results at home using the same high-quality ingredients she uses in her professional kitchen.

From classic recipes to fun and festive ideas, these books have something for everyone. Get ready to crank up the oven and start baking! As a professional pastry chef, I am always on the lookout for new cookie recipes. When the holiday season rolls around, I review many of the latest baking cookbooks. I was particularly impressed with this year's selection of cookbooks. Whether you're looking for traditional Christmas cookies, Hanukkah Cookies, or something a little more unique, you'll find plenty of inspiration in these six of the best baking cookbooks.

If you want to see what other awesome cookie recipes Sarah is playing with, be sure to follow her blog. You can pick up her cookbook there too!

Christmas Baking by Joyce & Laura Klynstra gives us that old-fashioned holiday feel in a book. From its cover design to each page with delicious photography. This holiday book provides a well rounded assortment of 100 treats to make and enjoy during the holidays. Beautiful full color photography alongside each recipe entices you into wanting to make each delicious looking treat. I will say, the Maple Peanut Clusters and Peanut Butter Caramel Bars are calling my name.

This book, though, is not just about holiday cookies or Christmas cookies. They include a huge section of sweet and savory breakfast treats they title “Christmas Morning”. If Christmas baking is a big deal for you, then this is the perfect book to purchase.

If you haven’t heard of Brian Hart Hoffman, you’ll want to. He’s the guy behind Bake From Scratch, a website, magazine, and Instagram page. As the Editor and Chief of Bake From Scratch, Brian has upped the holiday game with his version of Holiday Cookies.  A gorgeous book with rich photography and recipes that are seriously fun to follow. Because this book is larger than some of the other books I reviewed, the photos really hit you in the face, beautifully. This book is mostly about cookies. With over 200 pages of fun, elegant, and specifically holiday and Christmas cookie recipes. He also includes an extensive section on bars.

Although his book is mostly about Christmas cookies, he didn’t leave out Hanukkah. A Gelt Cookie Butter Blossom cookie that looks Hanukkah festive. Thanks Brian. I love that he includes a fun section of cookies from around the world. Including my fav Italian Rainbow Cookies. Some unique offerings in his book are his Chocolate Halvah Sandwich Cookies with cardamom buttercream. Beautifully decorated with dark chocolate & splashes of gold. His Peppermint Mocha Red Velvet Marble Cookies are absolutely gorgeous. A very modern take on a cookie. A real keeper.

Two books I’m including aren’t specifically about holidays, but can still be great holiday gift giving or keeping books. Both are, though, all about cookies. From two of some of the most famous baker’s today. Let’s start with Rose. Rose Levy Beranbaum is the queen of cake baking.

Author of The Cake Bible. If you’ve spent any time in the baking world as a professional baker or a home baker, the chances are you know Rose’s work 100%. And, you probably have her book(s) at home.

Rose is not only well known for her award winning cookbooks, but she has won a James Beard Foundation award for her Christmas Cookies Cookbook. That’s a big deal. She also has a popular blog, Real Baking With Rose. While she has had a Christmas cookies cookbook available for sometime, her newest contribution to the baking world is called The Cookie Bible. How could you have a Cake Bible without a Cookie Bible? It just makes sense.

Her book starts off with her “golden rules for baking the best cookies”. These are great tips for everything you could need to know or want to know about baking cookies. I wouldn’t skip this section. I like how she broke up the book into sections about how you make different types of cookies.

Rolled by hand, dropped or piped, shaped by hand, rolled and cut, holiday cookies, and bar and cake cookies. This book really gives you the full gamut of cookie baking. And, each recipe gives great detail about how to make each cookie. This is a definite book for your library or gift for a serious cookie baker.

Last, but certainly not least, is Dorie's Cookies. The heaviest book of them all and I love the purple book cover color with the gigantic chocolate cookie. Fun!

What’s great, right off the bat about this book is at the back of the book. Dorie gets the who of who and best of the best endorsements from some of the best in the business. Ina Garten, Nancy Silverton, Yotam Ottolenghi, Christina Tosi. She obviously travels in great baking and cooking circles.

Dorie Greenspan is a James Beard Foundation inductee for the Who's Who of Food and Beverage in America. Like Rose Beranbaum, this is a big deal in the food world.

Honestly, I didn’t know where to start with this book. It’s so comprehensive. An in-depth beginning about ingredients and equipment is fantastic. Although it’s not specifically festive like the other Christmas and holiday books, I can describe it as culinary festive. This is another great book for a serious cookie and bar baker. There are so many recipes to choose from that it will take you time to bake through this book. I think I’ll start with her Coffee-Cardamom Cookies.

I love that she chose cardamom spice and combined it with coffee or actually, freshly ground espresso. A unique combination, but sounds seriously delicious. Her design on this cookie, while simple, is ultra elegant.