When I first moved to New York City, the kitchen in my rental apartment was literally so small I had to step sideways to have enough room to open up the oven door completely. So it was with true pleasure — and a tremendous sense of freedom — that I started cooking in my husband-to-be’s high-ceilinged kitchen with its beautiful original oak cabinets and a double porcelain sink big enough to bathe in. It even had a large window —a luxury in many Manhattan co-ops — with a distant view of Riverside Church and the Hudson River.

Inspired by these surroundings, by falling in love, and, not coincidentally, by my first trip to Paris and the discovery of patisseries, I decided the first year we were together to bake Christmas cookies.

When I left home after college, my mother gave me two books which I think she felt equipped me fully for life on my own: The Holy Bible and Irma Rombauer’s original edition of The Joy of Cooking. In those days I wasn’t much of a cook — and even less of a baker. And there were no Christmas baking traditions in my family, unless you count the throwing away of unopened fruitcake tins sent by well-meaning relatives. So I believe I was lucky — no, I think actually, blessed — to somehow stumble upon a recipe at the very start of my baking career in The Joy of Cooking for a bar cookie called Angel Slices. (Click here for the recipe.)

Cooking has its instances of alchemy, I believe, when certain ingredients, combined or cooked together in a particular way result in something close to magic. To my mind, Angel Slices fall into that category.

Rich, crunchy, sweet, and tangy — the whole is far more than the sum of its parts. The cookie is simple enough to make, though it takes a little time and patience. It’s composed of a base of sweet pastry, which is baked on its own for 15 minutes, then slathered with a thick, gooey concoction of chopped pecans, coconuts, and brown sugar and put back in the oven for another 25 minutes.

Once cooled, the two layers are iced with a third: confectioners sugar thinned to spreading consistency with lemon juice. Click here to get the full recipe.

In The Joy of Cooking a little star symbol indicates that a certain cookie recipe is appropriate for Christmas. Pre-dating “Julie and Julia” by several decades, I proceeded to go through The Joy of Cooking and make every Christmas cookie in the book: Lebkuchen and Pfeffernusse, Almond Meringue Rings, Gingerbread Men, and half a dozen more. I’ll spare you the details and save you the time: Nothing came within caroling distance of Angel Slices.

Though new appliances have replaced my husband’s old ones and the addition of a dishwasher forced the removal of that original double sink, I’m still happily at work in the same kitchen. Like so many traditions, there’s something about baking at Christmastime that’s both joyful and sad. Getting down the cookie cutters, pulling out the baking pans — didn’t I just put these things away? I used to bake cookies every year for a friend in his nineties who, along with a gentlemanly charm and an encyclopedic memory, had a tremendous sweet tooth. This is the first year I won’t be packing up a tin for him.

Last year when I made three kinds of cookies for our extended family Christmas party, I noticed that my carefully decorated reindeer and Christmas tree sugar cookies — once favorites of the children present — were hardly even touched. “Oh, they’re all getting a little too old for those now, I guess,” my sister said.

Should I bother to bake cookies at all this year? I asked a few weeks ago. The answer was a resounding yes: Make Angel Slices.

Liza Bennett Gyllenhaal is a novelist who divides her time between New York City and The Berkshires. Read about her novel Local Knowledge at www.lizagyllenhaal.com