The best holiday present, we all know, is the one that keeps on giving -- preferably, back to the person who gave it.

The essential new cookbook "The Art & Soul of Baking," in this respect, is perfect. If you give it to someone, he or she is certain to use it to bake no end of goodies and give some of them to you.

This extraordinary book from Sur La Table and writer Cindy Mushet is enticing enough to turn even the most ardent of stove-top cooks into a flour-dusted baker of the highest order. With directions that are precise, yet easy to understand; an enormously helpful list of equipment needed for every recipe; tips for success and hints for making parts of the dishes ahead of time, the sometimes daunting art of baking is turned easy.

Filled with photos gorgeous enough to send your salivary glands into overtime, the book bursts with more than 275 tantalizing recipes: Pumpkin spice cake with maple-cream cheese filling. Classic lemon bars. Buttermilk scones with dried cherries and orange. Bananas Foster bread pudding. Peanut butter and chocolate marble brownies.

The list goes on and on (banana cream pie with chocolate and cinnamon. Spiced cardamom twists. Herbed chicken pot pie). This is one of those rare cookbooks where you might want to try literally every single recipe.

We only had time for four -- so far -- and they were all exceptional. We started with bread, a Cheddar cheese-mustard loaf, adding sharp Cheddar and Dijon mustard to an old-fashioned white loaf. This was some of the best bread we've ever made, pairing a hearty richness with an impossibly light crumb, and it went wonderfully with meat sandwiches, cheese sandwiches and especially just toasted and buttered.

Thus encouraged, we tried the raspberry-cherry crumble bars, which proved to be irresistible. A rich and chewy mix of oatmeal, raspberry jam, dried cherries and more butter than you want to know about, they disappeared the moment they were brought into the office. Co-workers who missed out gathered around, licking their lips in anticipation of stray crumbs.

An herbed fougasse, a thin, rustic bread shaped to resemble a leaf, was just as successful. Filled with fresh rosemary and thyme and topped with coarse sea salt, it resembled a focaccia in both texture and flavor, in part because of the addition of olive oil both in the dough and brushed on top before baking.

Finally (so far), we made the dulce de leche éclairs with milk chocolate glaze. The dough (technically, a spiced pate a choux) was delicious, the filling was transcendentally amazing and the glaze was heavenly -- but we had a bit of a problem in making them. Some of the éclairs we made did not receive enough of that unbelievably sinful filling, but the problem seemed to stem from our lack of experience and our inability to find the right tool for filling.

Ironically, although Sur La Table publishes the book, it no longer sells the best pastry decorating tip for filling éclairs.

"The Art & Soul of Baking" is so thorough and easy to understand that it makes even puff pastry seem easy to make. Pie crusts look like a snap, danishes appear simple.

I can't wait to make the almond croissants. And the spiced cardamom twists. And the raspberry soufflés with hidden chocolate truffles . . .