“The Pastry Queen Christmas: Big-Hearted Holiday Entertaining, Texas Style,” by Rebecca Rather, opens with a description of the annual Christmas Parade in the author’s central Texas hometown of Fredericksburg, where she runs a bakery and café. Replete with “beefy pick-up” trucks, floats re-enacting biblical scenes, legions of gals decked out in miniskirts and cowboy boots, and an enormous “Texas longhorn range steer with Christmas lights twisted through its extraordinarily large rack” — this is not the sort of thing you’ll see coming down Fifth Avenue.

As I was flipping through the absorbing book, though, I began to worry that the entire town of Fredericksburg would soon be checking into Hill Country Memorial Hospital, because these holiday recipes are insanely rich. The Creamy Chicken Lasagna, serving between eight and 10 people, calls for two sticks of butter, one cup of heavy whipping cream, and a whopping five cups of cheese; and the Shrimp ‘n’ Grits contains no less than two cups of half-and-half, three cups of milk, one stick of butter, one cup of Parmesan cheese, and six slices of bacon — all for a recipe that serves six people.

All that said, this cookbook has its charms, and not only for those with fearless digestive tracts and a predilection for rodeos. It offers numerous tips for easy holiday entertaining, and the ambitious holiday baker will find the section on gingerbread house-making, with its detailed instructions and complete templates, very useful.

Although I shied away from the over-the-top fare, I sampled some more reasonable (although hardly light) treats, such as Minty Brownies and Bite-Sized Sticky Buns. More like fudge than brownies, the Minty Brownies are easy to prepare, freeze nicely, and — because the topping is made of Junior Mints, a low-fat candy — taste more decadent than they really are. The sticky buns were more labor-intensive, and I ended up with far more dough — and far less syrup — than the recipe indicated I would have. Nonetheless, they were quite tasty, and I just used the extra dough to make dinner rolls.

The book is beautifully produced, with lots of artfully staged food photos (by Laurie Smith). And the detailed introductions to each recipe — with lore about Ms. Rather’s family, neighbors, and the bakery-café she runs — are generally entertaining, making this a pleasant book to flip through.

Another visually stunning, high-calorie Christmas cookbook is “I’m Dreaming of a Chocolate Christmas,” by Marcel Desaulniers, executive chef and co-owner of the Trellis Restaurant in Virginia’s Colonial Williamsburg. The photos (by Ron Manville) are mouthwatering, festive, and elegant, and the book is full of useful information for holiday bakers, such as an index of recipes organized by which ones travel well and which ones do not, along with suggestions for packaging homemade gifts. The recommendations about equipment, ingredients, and techniques are also helpful, though incomplete. For example, the section on toasting nuts does not include details for peanuts — although several peanut recipes refer the reader there. In addition, while making the Chocolate Mouthful of Peanut Butter Bars, I was left guessing as to whether to use standard peanut butter or natural peanut butter. (I opted for natural, which might have been a mistake, as my bars turned out a little dry.)

Mr. Desaulniers insists that all the recipes were tested in a home kitchen from ingredients readily available at the supermarket, and although his previous book, “Death by Chocolate,” is quite demanding, “Chocolate Christmas” is designed to be “simple and straightforward, but still loaded with ‘WOW!'”

With the exception of the ice cream concoctions — the extremely complicated Pumpkin Pecan Caramel Chocolate Fudge Ice Cream Cake, for example — that promise generally holds true, although not all the ingredients are easy to find. I don’t know about the grocery stores in Virginia, but neither my local supermarket nor FreshDirect carries coconut extract. And the recipes also aren’t as dummy-proof as the author would have you believe: Even with my brand-new candy thermometer and with the range set at medium, like the recipe instructed, I managed to burn Mrs. Lenhardt’s Chocolate Almond Toffee.

Although the recipes generally appealed to the chocolate fiend in me, a number of them were so busy as to be unappealing. Cranberry Apple Chocolate Chip Crumble? I love chocolate, but not in everything. And Cocoa Coconut Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins (come on, let’s be honest and call them cupcakes) and Chocolate Strawberry Hazelnut Brownie Bars simply have too much going on.

Be warned: Mr. Desaulniers’s Christmas-spirit recipe intros are painfully hokey. “Katie, bar the door — the spirit of the holidays has been redefined!” he exclaims in describing Chocolate Fruitycakes. And Mike’s Dark Chocolate Black Bottom Bites spurs the author to implore, “Please, oh, please, Santa, bring me some Bites.”

Nonetheless, if you can stomach the kitsch factor — and I suppose it’s no worse than the endless loops of Muzak Christmas carols and “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” we all endure between Thanksgiving and New Year’s — these books should inspire you to do your own cooking and baking this holiday season. Or, as Mr. Desaulniers might say, they’ll keep your kitchen as busy as Santa’s workshop.