Mondays with Maida

I’ve written before about what a great book Maida Heatter’s Book of Great Cookies is – last week when I made her Chocolate and Peanut Butter Ripples and back in August when I made her Plain Old-Fashioned Sugar Cookies and Cobblestones. Please indulge me once more as I tell you a little more about what this book means to me.

The copy I have is from the eighth printing in October, 1982. I assume I purchased my copy either in 1982 or 1983. I don’t remember what other cookbooks I had then, but I’m pretty sure this was among the first. I was living in an apartment then and I don’t think my cookbook collection had yet swelled anything close to its present size. This book quickly became my favorite and cookies became “my thing”. My copy of the book is well worn and well loved. It falls open to page 193 (the best sugar cookie recipe) and other favorites with little coaxing. Over the next couple of years I gave copies to my mom, my sister, my great aunt, and my future sister-in-law. When my youngest brother got married, this book was no longer in print, so I had to give my sister-in-law-to-be a new Maida Heater cookie book.

A few months ago I discovered Jessica’s Biscuit and found that they have copies of Maida Heatter’s Book of Great Cookies. I snapped up five copies – one has gone to my youngest brother and sister-in-law, another to my brother Bob, and three are stashed away in a box under my bed. Two of these copies are for my nieces, Christina who is 6 years old and Cassidy who is not quite 5 months old, and the last is just in case. Actually, now I’m thinking I should have bought a few more!

I’ve got a number of favorites that I make from time to time, but haven’t tried many new recipes from the book in quite a while. After making the Chocolate and Peanut Butter Ripples last week I got thinking… I’d love to make all the cookies in this book (I counted and there are a little over 150). My plan is to start at the beginning of the book and work my way through it, making approximately one batch of cookies every week. I haven’t quite worked out what I’ll do with all the cookies, but I think it will be a lot of fun. I also really like the idea of documenting this project through my blog – I don’t know how long my blog will be around, but I’d like to think that Cassidy and Christina will be able to read it when they start making cookies from there own copies of the book.

By the way, the recipes in Maida Heatter’s Book of Great Cookies were reprinted in 1997, along with cookie recipes from two of her other books, in Maida Heatter’s Cookies. This book is still in print and is available from Amazon. I got the book out of the library and the recipes that I’ve compared are virtually identical, though it doesn’t have the charming illustrations found in the older book.

Please join me tomorrow and every Monday for cookies from Maida Heatter!