A baking cookbook is a gift for everyone. The recipient gets a new collection of recipes, photos and essays to fuel her fire, and then her social circle gets to reap the rewards of the resulting baking binges. That's why the gift-giver should pick a cookbook with care. If there's a baker on your Christmas list, here are some of our favorite baking books from the past year, suitable for anyone who's been naughty or nice (or both).
Nothing's nicer than pie. Though it's trendy now, the true joy of stalwart pie is that it transcends trends. Pie will always be relevant. But if you buy one cookbook about mini-pies this year (seriously, there are several), it should be Dani Cone's "Cutie Pies: 40 Sweet, Savory, and Adorable Recipes" (Andrews McMeel, $16.99, 160 pages). Cone, proprietor of Seattle's wildly popular High 5 Pie, assembled a mix-and-match assortment of crust, filling and shape options, so you can customize big pies, hand pies, pies in jars and itty-bitty pies to your heart's content, with Cone's practical tips and suggestions to guide you along. Cone's sincere passion for pie is palpable on every page, an asset for any successful cookbook, but a must for a pie cookbook.