Editors of 'Gourmet' picked a cookie recipe for each year.

Fresh out of the oven, this year’s cookie books make for a generous batch of holiday recipes. Call this year’s collection the gift that keeps on giving. Seriously. It’s loaded with cookie-swap guides, books about how to give away the spectacular cookies you bake.

My favorite of the bunch is not part of the cookie-exchange trend. It’s The Gourmet Cookie Book ($18, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). Editors of Gourmet compiled the single best cookie recipe for each year of the magazine’s lush life, from its premiere in 1941 to its demise in 2009.

The editors reprinted the recipes as originally published, allowing a glance into another time, one less obsessed with the fine points of fondant.

“In the early years, they are remarkably casual, a kind of mysterious shorthand that assumes that each reader is an accomplished cook who needs very little in the way of guidance,” write the editors, who did add recipe comments and parenthetical notes for the sake of modern-day clarity.

For instance, they let readers know that a “moderate oven” means 350 degrees. “Bake in a slow oven” means bake at 300 degrees. And “breakfast cocoa” translates nicely to unsweetened cocoa.

One recipe that needed little explanation was the recipe for Pistachio Tuiles. The thin crisps appeared in Gourmet in August 1988 as part of a “trendy summer luncheon” menu. That recipe is reprinted below.

Other cookie books in the batch:

The Cookie Party Cookbook: The Ultimate Guide to Hosting a Cookie Exchange

By Robin L. Olson ($18.99, St. Martin’s Press)

Olson, aka “The Cookie Exchange Queen,” has been cookie-swapping online for more than a decade via her website, cookie-exchange.com. In this book, she offers tips on hosting the perfect exchange of confections, who to invite, what to bake, how to package the goodies.

Cookie Swap!

By Lauren Chattman ($15, Workman)

A cookie queen in her own right, Chattman, a trained pastry chef and cookbook author, presents 71 recipes and a thorough run-down of cookie-swapping tips.

Very Merry Cookie Party: How to Plan and Host a Christmas Cookie Exchange

By Barbara Grunes and Virginia Van Vynckt ($19.95, Chronicle Books)

The authors offer detailed technique tips as well as advice on selecting a theme and presenting one’s holiday cookies best.

Dress Your Gingerbread

By Joanna Farrow ($14.99, Spruce/Octopus Books)

The author, a home economist and food writer, offers a whimsical gingerbread parade featuring quite a cast of characters. There’s gingerbread Cat Burglar and gingerbread Alien Girl, gingerbread Surfer Dude and the pretty hilarious looking gingerbread Shark.

Biscotti: Recipes From the Kitchen of the American Academy in Rome, the Rome Sustainable Food Project

By Mona Talbott and Mirella Misenti ($18.95, The Little Bookroom)

The authors are chefs at the Sustainable Food Project, which provides locally harvested, organic meals to Rome’s American Academy community. Executive chef Talbott draws much of her inspiration from her work with sustainable foods icon Alice Waters at Chez Panisse. Here, she and pastry chef Misenti present 50 biscotti and dolcetti recipes.

~liz_balmaseda@pbpost.com

Thin and crisp as potato chips, the slim little cookies are studded with pistachios, which give them their delicate color and their elegantly exotic air.

Pistachio Tuiles, from the Gourmet Cookie Book.

Pistachio Tuiles

Makes about 1 dozen cookies

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar

1/4 teaspoon almond extract

1 large egg white, at room temperature

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/4 cup shelled natural pistachio nuts, blanched and oven-dried and chopped

In a bowl, cream the butter, add the sugar, and beat the mixture until it is light and fluffy. Add the almond extract, the egg white, and a pinch of salt, and beach the mixture for 5 to 10 seconds, or until it is smooth but not frothy.

Sift the flour over the mixture and fold it in with the pistachios. (The batter will be thin.)

Spoon rounded teaspoons of the batter 3 inches apart onto buttered baking sheets and, with a fork dipped in cold water, spread them to form 2-inch rounds.

Bake the cookies in batches in the middle of a preheated 350 degree oven for 6 to 9, or until the edges are golden brown.

Transfer the cookies with a metal spatula to a rolling pin and curve them around the pin. (If the cookies become too firm to remove from the baking sheet, return them to the oven for a few seconds to soften.) Let the cookies cool on the rolling pin.

The cookies may be made 1 day in advance and kept in an airtight container.

RECIPE NOTES:

1. The pistachios do not need to be blanched; simply rub off any loose skins.

2. To form the cookies, drop level tablespoons of batter onto the baking sheets and spread into a thin 3-inch round with an offset spatula.

Recipe from “The Gourmet Cookie Book: The Single Best Recipe for Each Year 1941-2009″ (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)