Christmas Cookies from Baking’s Biggest Talents: Cindy Mushet

By Kate Heddings

Inventing a truly great cookie requires a kind of genius. Baking talent Cindy Mushet shares some of her best Christmas cookies with Food & Wine.

Vanilla Crescents

Roll-and-Cut Sugar Cookies

Royal Icing

“I’ve made every mistake in the book, which is hard to admit, but it’s why I’m a good teacher,” says pastry chef Cindy Mushet, an instructor at the Seattle-based store Sur La Table. The Art & Soul of Baking proves she’s a great teacher, with precise directions for making sweets like her lovely “roll-and-cut” sugar cookies and her vanilla crescent cookies. But although her instructions are meticulous, her overall attitude is strikingly low-key: “Hey, it’s food, not world peace.”

slideshow The Best Holiday Cookies