Cake Love: How to Bake Cakes from Scratch


Warren Brown - 2008
    And he wants you to conquer your fear of flour and learn to love every step of cake baking—including, of course, the step in which you present your made-from-scratch masterpiece to bedazzled, hungry-eyed family and friends. (Not to mention the moment when you yourself get to sample a slice of that lovingly crafted creation.)For Brown, love and baking are inseparable. After all, he abandoned an unrewarding career in law to do the work—baking cakes!—that he finds truly emotionally satisfying. Every page of CakeLove communicates that satisfaction, as well as Brown’s can-do approach to the art of baking. As he asserts, baking cakes isn’t a cakewalk, but it’s not rocket science, either—and getting it right isn’t nearly as hard as you think.Pound cakes, butter cakes, sponge cakes, cupcakes. Glazes, frostings, fillings, meringues. Brown provides all the basics on ingredients, equipment, and techniques, as well as recipes for more than 50 cakes that range from the classic (Chocolate Butter Cake) to the adventurous (“Sassy,” a pound cake made with mango puree and cayenne pepper). The informative step-by-step shots make you want to run to the kitchen and start baking, and the scrumptious color photos of completed cakes look good enough to sink your teeth into.

My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method


Jim Lahey - 2009
    Witnessing the excitement that Bittman’s initial piece unleashed worldwide among bakers experienced and beginner alike, Jim grew convinced that home cooks were eager for a no-fuss way to make bread, and so now, in this eagerly anticipated collection of recipes, Jim shares his one-of-a-kind method for baking rustic, deep-flavored bread in your own oven.The secret to Jim Lahey’s bread is slow-rise fermentation. As Jim shows in My Bread, with step-by-step instructions followed by step-by-step pictures, the amount of labor you put in amounts to 5 minutes: mix water, flour, yeast, and salt, and then let time work its magic—no kneading necessary. Wait 12 to 18 hours for the bread to rise, developing structure and flavor; then, after another short rise, briefly bake the bread in a covered cast-iron pot.The process couldn’t be more simple, or the results more inspiring. My Bread devotes chapters to Jim’s variations on the basic loaf, including an olive loaf, pecorino cheese bread, pancetta rolls, the classic Italian baguette (stirato), and the stunning bread stick studded with tomatoes, olives, or garlic (stecca). He gets even more creative with loaves like Peanut Butter and Jelly Bread, others that use juice instead of water, and his Irish Brown Bread, which calls for Guinness stout. For any leftover loaves, Jim includes what to do with old bread (try bread soup or a chocolate torte) and how to make truly special sandwiches. And no book by Jim Lahey would be complete without his Sullivan Street Bakery signature, pizza Bianca—light, crispy flatbread with olive oil and rosemary that Jim has made even better than that of Italy’s finest bakeries. Other pizza recipes, like a pomodoro (tomato), only require you to spread the risen dough across a baking sheet and add toppings before baking. Here—finally—Jim Lahey gives us a cookbook that enables us to fit quality bread into our lives at home.

The Confetti Cakes Cookbook: Spectacular Cookies, Cakes, and Cupcakes from New York City's Famed Bakery


Elisa Strauss - 2007
    The cake, created by Elisa Strauss of Confetti Cakes in New York City, was a sensation. Not only did everyone at the party want to know how it was made, they wanted to know how to create something as dazzling themselves. This unique book contains projects for every skill level: from gorgeous, sugar-dusted heart cookies to delightful billiard-ball cupcakes, to sculpted cakes in the shape of wine bottles and Chinese takeout boxes, to the extravagantly beautiful, threetiered embroidery cake showcased on Sex and the City. With delicious recipes, stunning creations for every occasion, suggestions for time-saving shortcuts, and hot tips for fabulous results, all illustrated with gorgeous photographs and easy-to follow diagrams, The Confetti Cakes Cookbook is a must-have for the outrageously chic baker in all of us.

Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food


Jessica Seinfeld - 2007
    Mother of three, Jessica Seinfeld wages a personal war against sugars, packaged foods, and other nutritional saboteurs, offering appetising alternatives for parents who find themselves succumbing to the fastest and easiest (and least healthy) choices available to them.

Baking


James Peterson - 2009
    Learn the fundamentals well, and you can bake perfect cakes, cookies, tarts, breads, and pastries each and every time.That's the premise of Baking, revered cooking teacher James Peterson's master course in baking fundamentals. In more than 350 recipes and auxiliary techniques--most accompanied by illuminating step-by-step photographs--Peterson lays the foundation for lifelong baking success.This book teaches you how to build finished baked goods from their essential components, providing both maximum guidance for less experienced bakers and great creative freedom for more confident bakers. The Cakes chapter, for example, presents basic cake recipes (Moist Sponge Cake, Devil' s Food Cake) followed by frostings, fillings, and glazes (Professional-Style Buttercream, White Chocolate Ganache), allowing you to mix and match endlessly. Or, if you're looking for knockout assembled cakes, go to the end of the chapter and discover complete illustrated instructions for, say, a decadent Chocolate Hazelnut Cake with Chocolate Filling and Hazelnut Buttercream, or an elegant Peach Crème Mousseline Cake. Baking is packed with the basic, must-have recipes for every baker's repertoire (as well as more ambitious classics), such as:Pound Cake • Crème Anglaise • Chiffon Cake • Cheesecake • Classic Puff Pastry • Cherry Pie • Lemon Meringue Pie • Miniature Raw Fruit Tarts • Linzertorte • Cream Puffs • Chocolate Croissants • Cheese Danish • Basic Butter Cookies • Lemon Bars • Biscotti • Challah • Rye Bread • Focaccia • Blueberry Muffins • Scones • Flourless Chocolate Cake • Cheese Souffles • Miniature Cake Petits Fours • Apple Strudel • Napoleons • Rolled Fondant • Bûche de Noël • Éclairs • Mushroom JalousieCopious photographs inspire and help bakers visualize the crucial moments of hundreds of recipes and techniques, including:Troubleshooting Tarts and Pies • Baking "Blind" • Making Liquid Fondant • Coating a Cake with Hot Icing • Assembling a Layer Cake without Using a Cake Stand • Decorating a Cake with a Caramel Cage • Coloring Marzipan • Making a Rolled Cake • Decorating Cookies with Colored Sugar • Filling and Using a Pastry Bag • Kneading Wet Dough in a Food Processor • Scoring Dough • Shaping a Fougasse • Repairing Chocolate Mixtures that Have Seized • Cooking Sugar Syrup to the Soft Ball StageThorough, approachable, and authoritative, Baking shows why James Peterson is a trusted source for home cooks of every level. Work your way through this book, and you will gain the skills you'll need for impressive results every time.

The French Laundry Cookbook


Thomas Keller - 1999
    The most transformative cookbook of the century celebrates this milestone by showcasing the genius of chef/proprietor Thomas Keller himself. Keller is a wizard, a purist, a man obsessed with getting it right. And this, his first cookbook, is every bit as satisfying as a French Laundry meal itself: a series of small, impeccable, highly refined, intensely focused courses. Most dazzling is how simple Keller's methods are: squeegeeing the moisture from the skin on fish so it sautées beautifully; poaching eggs in a deep pot of water for perfect shape; the initial steeping in the shell that makes cooking raw lobster out of the shell a cinch; using vinegar as a flavor enhancer; the repeated washing of bones for stock for the cleanest, clearest tastes. From innovative soup techniques, to the proper way to cook green vegetables, to secrets of great fish cookery, to the creation of breathtaking desserts; from beurre monté to foie gras au torchon, to a wild and thoroughly unexpected take on coffee and doughnuts, The French Laundry Cookbook captures, through recipes, essays, profiles, and extraordinary photography, one of America's great restaurants, its great chef, and the food that makes both unique. One hundred and fifty superlative recipes are exact recipes from the French Laundry kitchen—no shortcuts have been taken, no critical steps ignored, all have been thoroughly tested in home kitchens. If you can't get to the French Laundry, you can now re-create at home the very experience Wine Spectator described as “as close to dining perfection as it gets.”

Gizzi's Healthy Appetite: Food to nourish the body and feed the soul


Gizzi Erskine - 2015
    I want to start a new food revolution; one where people have a better understanding of nutrition but don't forget that eating should be enjoyable!' - Gizzi ErskineGizzi Erskine believes that the key to healthy eating is to cook fresh food using good ingredients. Her ethos is to love food in all its guises and to try new things as much as possible. Gizzi's Healthy Appetite is a collection of over 100 of her favourite recipes - all with a Gizzi twist. Among the array of incredible dishes, insanely good flavours and palate-pleasing textures to choose from are the crunchy Marinated Griddled Whole Chicken Caesar salad, spicy Green Chilli Pork, oozing Roasted Baby Cauliflower with Cheese Sauce & Crispy Shallots, fresh Tuna Tataki with Yuzu and the ultimate Korean BBQ. And, for a sweet treat, who could resist warm Molten Caramel & Chocolate Pudding, soothing White Chocolate & Cherry Clafoutis or the fragrant Maple, Orange & Rosemary Tart? These are dishes that anyone with a healthy appetite will relish.

Joy of Cooking


Irma S. Rombauer - 1931
    Rombauer self-published the first three thousand copies of Joy of Cooking in 1931, it has become the kitchen bible, with more than 20 million copies in print. This new edition of Joy has been thoroughly revised and expanded by Irma’s great-grandson John Becker and his wife, Megan Scott.John and Megan developed more than six hundred new recipes for this edition, tested and tweaked thousands of classic recipes, and updated every section of every chapter to reflect the latest ingredients and techniques available to today’s home cooks. Their strategy for revising this edition was the same one Irma and Marion employed: Vet, research, and improve Joy’s coverage of legacy recipes while introducing new dishes, modern cooking techniques, and comprehensive information on ingredients now available at farmers’ markets and grocery stores. You will find tried-and-true favorites like Banana Bread Cockaigne, Chocolate Chip Cookies, and Southern Corn Bread—all retested and faithfully improved—as well as new favorites like Chana Masala, Beef Rendang, Megan’s Seeded Olive Oil Granola, and Smoked Pork Shoulder. In addition to a thoroughly modernized vegetable chapter, there are many more vegan and vegetarian recipes, including Caramelized Tamarind Tempeh, Crispy Pan-Fried Tofu, Spicy Chickpea Soup, and Roasted Mushroom Burgers. Joy’s baking chapters now include gram weights for accuracy, along with a refreshed lineup of baked goods like Cannelés de Bordeaux, Rustic No-Knead Sourdough, Ciabatta, Chocolate-Walnut Babka, and Chicago-Style Deep-Dish Pizza, as well as gluten-free recipes for pizza dough and yeast breads. A new chapter on streamlined cooking explains how to economize time, money, and ingredients and avoid waste. You will learn how to use a diverse array of ingredients, from amaranth to za’atar. New techniques include low-temperature and sous vide cooking, fermentation, and cooking with both traditional and electric pressure cookers. Barbecuing, smoking, and other outdoor cooking methods are covered in even greater detail. This new edition of Joy is the perfect combination of classic recipes, new dishes, and indispensable reference information for today’s home cooks. Whether it is the only cookbook on your shelf or one of many, Joy is and has been the essential and trusted guide for home cooks for almost a century. This new edition continues that legacy.

The Pillsbury Cookbook


Pillsbury - 1989
    From the name that generations have grown to trust.This new paperback edition brings together the tools we need to prepare quick and nutritious meals and includes nutritional information with every recipe. More than 150 color photos, step-by-step drawings, and easy-to-use charts make this the complete cookbook for the busy 90s!

The Best of Cooking Light: Over 500 of Our All-Time Greatest Recipes


Cooking Light Magazine - 2005
    To make the final cut for The Best of Cooking Light, each recipe had to meet one or more of the following criteria: • Earned a high rating in the Cooking Light Test Kitchens • Has a surprising and satisfying “no-way-this-can-be-light” flavor • Named a “reader favorite recipe” based on calls, letters, e-mails, and comments on cookinglight.com • Voted “most popular” among the Cooking Light Foods staff—these are the recipes they cook for their families and friends You’re guaranteed success with every recipe! Each recipe has been tested at least twice, often three or four times, in the Cooking Light Test Kitchens to ensure that not only are they supremely healthy, tasty, and easy to prepare, but that they also have the all-important “yum factor.”  “Our Test Kitchens’ staff does the hard work every day so the rest of us can take Cooking Light accuracy for granted.” Mary Kay Culpepper Editor, Cooking Light  Over 250 color photographs make this all-star collection come alive. A virtual feast for the eyes, this book is as beautiful to read and display, as it is practical to use. Look for serving suggestions and artful food presentations throughout to show you how to turn an ordinary dish into an extraordinary meal. This healthy cookbook is for all cooks and for all occasions. While some recipes take very little time, others require a bit more commitment. Eitherway, you’ll have your choice of great food that adjusts to your schedule, your grocery list, and your mood. Plus, • Step-by-step instructions and complete nutritional analysis with each recipe • Preparation and make-ahead tips • Menu suggestions• Ingredient substitutions and purchasing information Whatever your definition of “best” is, there are recipes here for you. Just step into your kitchen and make them your own.

Maida Heatter's Book of Great Desserts


Maida Heatter - 1974
    Gathers recipes for cakes, cookies, pastries, crepes, blintzes, popovers, cream puffs, puff pastry, pies, cheesecakes, ice creams, and souffles.

On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen


Harold McGee - 1984
    Hailed by Time magazine as "a minor masterpiece" when it first appeared in 1984, On Food and Cooking is the bible to which food lovers and professional chefs worldwide turn for an understanding of where our foods come from, what exactly they're made of, and how cooking transforms them into something new and delicious. Now, for its twentieth anniversary, Harold McGee has prepared a new, fully revised and updated edition of On Food and Cooking. He has rewritten the text almost completely, expanded it by two-thirds, and commissioned more than 100 new illustrations. As compulsively readable and engaging as ever, the new On Food and Cooking provides countless eye-opening insights into food, its preparation, and its enjoyment.On Food and Cooking pioneered the translation of technical food science into cook-friendly kitchen science and helped give birth to the inventive culinary movement known as "molecular gastronomy." Though other books have now been written about kitchen science, On Food and Cooking remains unmatched in the accuracy, clarity, and thoroughness of its explanations, and the intriguing way in which it blends science with the historical evolution of foods and cooking techniques.Among the major themes addressed throughout this new edition are:Traditional and modern methods of food production and their influences on food qualityThe great diversity of methods by which people in different places and times have prepared the same ingredientsTips for selecting the best ingredients and preparing them successfullyThe particular substances that give foods their flavors and that give us pleasureOur evolving knowledge of the health benefits and risks of foodsOn Food and Cooking is an invaluable and monumental compendium of basic information about ingredients, cooking methods, and the pleasures of eating. It will delight and fascinate anyone who has ever cooked, savored, or wondered about food.

The Book on Pie: Everything You Need to Know to Bake Perfect Pies


Erin Jeanne McDowell - 2020
    Erin Jeanne McDowell, New York Times contributing baker extraordinaire and top food stylist, wrote the book on pie, a comprehensive handbook that distills all you'll ever need to know for making perfect pies. The Book on Pie starts with the basics, including ways to mix pie dough for extra flaky crusts, storage and freezing, recipe size conversions, and expert tips for decorating and styling, before diving into the recipes for all the different kinds of pies: fruit, custard, cream, chiffon, cold set, savory, and mini. Find everything from classics like Apple Pie and Pumpkin Pie, to more inspired recipes like Birthday-Cake Pie and Caramel Pork Pie with Chile and Scallions. Erin also suggests recommended pie doughs and toppings with each recipe for infinitely customizable pies: Mix and match Pumpkin Spice Pie Dough and Dark Chocolate Drippy Glaze with the Pumpkin Pie, or sub in the Chive Compound-Butter Crust for the Croque Madame Pielets . . . the possibilities are endless. With helpful tips, photographic guides, and inspirations—pie-deas—it's almost like having Erin in the kitchen baking pies with you.

Dessert for Two: Small-Batch Sweets for One, Two, or a Few


Christina Lane - 2015
    Finding the willpower to resist extra slices of cake can be difficult; the battle between leftover cookies and a healthy breakfast is over before it started. Until now. Dessert for Two takes well-loved desserts and scales them down to make only two servings. Cakes are baked in small pans and ramekins. Pies are baked in small pie pans or muffin cups. Cookie recipes are scaled down to make 1 dozen or fewer. Your favorite bars: brownies, blondes, and marshmallow cereal treats are baked in a bread loaf pan - which happily serves two when cut down the middle. Newly married couples (and empty-nesters) will be particularly enthralled with this miniature dessert guide. To everyone who lives alone: have your own personal-sized cake and eat it, too.

Simple Cake: All You Need to Keep Your Friends and Family in Cake [A Baking Book]


Odette Williams - 2019
    All of these recipes and more are within your reach in Simple Cake, a love letter from Brooklyn apron and bakeware designer Odette Williams to her favorite treat. With easy recipes and inventive decorating ideas, Williams gives you recipes for 10 base cakes, 15 toppings, and endless decorating ideas to yield a treat--such as Milk & Honey Cake, Coconut Cake, Summer Berry Pavlova, and Chocolatey Chocolate Cake--for any occasion. Williams also addresses the fundamentals for getting cakes just right, with foolproof recipes that can be cranked out whenever the urge strikes. Gorgeous photography, along with Williams's warm and heartfelt writing, elevate this book into something truly special.