Crust: Bread to Get Your Teeth Into


Richard Bertinet - 2007
    His revolutionary and simple approach that won him so many accolades for his first book Dough continues, but this time he leads you further into the world of breadmaking, introducing recipes that require a little more understanding and time but inspiring you with the confidence to create them at home. Bake a beautiful loaf of the mighty sourdough or surprise your family in the morning with the sweet, warm aroma of freshly baked croissants. Drawn from cuisines and chefs from around the world, Richard's recipes are all accessible and will soon become favorites in your breadmaking repertoire. Experiment with a Thai-inspired flatbread that combines chillies, ginger and lime juice in the dough, or make mini baguettes using Cabernet grape flour--surely the perfect companion to a plate of cheese and ham! These utterly delicious recipes are complemented by sublime photography from Jean Cazals, and a free DVD of Richard taking you through the tips and techniques that make his style of breadmaking so easy and enjoyable. If Dough got you hooked on baking, now it's time to get your teeth into Crust.

Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking


Michael Ruhlman - 2009
    Why spend time sorting through the millions of cookie recipes available in books, magazines, and on the Internet? Isn’t it easier just to remember 1-2-3? That’s the ratio of ingredients that always make a basic, delicious cookie dough: 1 part sugar, 2 parts fat, and 3 parts flour. From there, add anything you want—chocolate, lemon and orange zest, nuts, poppy seeds, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, almond extract, or peanut butter, to name a few favorite additions. Replace white sugar with brown for a darker, chewier cookie. Add baking powder and/or eggs for a lighter, airier texture. Ratios are the starting point from which a thousand variations begin. Ratios are the simple proportions of one ingredient to another. Biscuit dough is 3:1:2—or 3 parts flour, 1 part fat, and 2 parts liquid. This ratio is the beginning of many variations, and because the biscuit takes sweet and savory flavors with equal grace, you can top it with whipped cream and strawberries or sausage gravy. Vinaigrette is 3:1, or 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar, and is one of the most useful sauces imaginable, giving everything from grilled meats and fish to steamed vegetables or lettuces intense flavor. Cooking with ratios will unchain you from recipes and set you free. With thirty-three ratios and suggestions for enticing variations, Ratio is the truth of cooking: basic preparations that teach us how the fundamental ingredients of the kitchen—water, flour, butter and oils, milk and cream, and eggs—work. Change the ratio and bread dough becomes pasta dough, cakes become muffins become popovers become crepes. As the culinary world fills up with overly complicated recipes and never-ending ingredient lists, Michael Ruhlman blasts through the surplus of information and delivers this innovative, straightforward book that cuts to the core of cooking. Ratio provides one of the greatest kitchen lessons there is—and it makes the cooking easier and more satisfying than ever.

Vegan Cooking for One: Over 150 simple and appetizing meals


Leah Leneman - 2000
    There is also a Spring and Summer collection and an Autumn and Winter collection so that the availability and freshness of ingredients is assured.The recipes are both savoury and sweet, main meals and light snacks and have influences and flavours from around the world.

Martha Stewart's Cakes: Our First-Ever Book of Bundts, Loaves, Layers, Coffee Cakes, and more


Martha Stewart - 2013
    From pound cake and angel food (with many variations) to genoise and streusel-topped, from comfort classics like red velvet, six-layer coconut, rich chocolate, lemon meringue, and cheesecake to sophisticated grown-up fare including chiffon cakes and tortes with luscious fruits, these 150 recipes and color photographs cover techniques, decorating, and gifting ideas for every taste and occasion, whether no-fuss or fancy.Baking trends come and go, but cakes are timeless. From the editors and photographers of Martha Stewart Living, Cakes includes classics (German Chocolate, New York-Style Cheesecake), crowd-pleasers (Baked Alaska, Hummingbird), and cakes with unique, sophisticated flavors and embellishments (Pecan Torte with Lemon Curd, Saffron-Scented Pear Upside-Down Cake). Whether you need a birthday cake (for any age!), have bake-sale duty, want a travel-friendly coffee cake, or seek to impress at a dinner party or with a handmade gift, Martha Stewart's Cakes has more than 150 cakes plus ideas for decorating, gifting, and storing. Beautiful color photography that shows you just what you're aiming for and dozens of make-ahead tips make baking low-stress.From the Trade Paperback edition.

BraveTart: Iconic American Desserts


Stella Parks - 2017
    Whether down-home delights like Blueberry Muffins and Glossy Fudge Brownies or supermarket mainstays such as Vanilla Wafers and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream, your favorites are all here. These meticulously tested recipes bring an award-winning pastry chef’s expertise into your kitchen, along with advice on how to “mix it up” with over 200 customizable variations—in short, exactly what you’d expect from a cookbook penned by a senior editor at Serious Eats. Yet BraveTart is much more than a cookbook, as Stella Parks delves into the surprising stories of how our favorite desserts came to be, from chocolate chip cookies that predate the Tollhouse Inn to the prohibition-era origins of ice cream sodas and floats. With a foreword by The Food Lab’s J. Kenji López-Alt, vintage advertisements for these historical desserts, and breathtaking photography from Penny De Los Santos, BraveTart is sure to become an American classic.

Sizzling Skillets and Other One-Pot Wonders


Emeril Lagasse - 2011
    From Beef Bourguignon to Chicken and Andouille Jambalaya to Shrimp and Asparagus Risotto to Slow Cooked Pulled Pork, Sizzling Skillets and Other One-Pot Wonders makes Emeril’s trademark recipes even easier to prepare at home while saving on time, space, and clean up.

The Free Range Cook


Annabel Langbein - 2011
    Her down-to-earth approach to cooking is both practical and inspiring. Starting with the freshest seasonal ingredients, she shows how easy it is to cook sensational food in a simple, natural way.

The Perfect Scoop: Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas, and Sweet Accompaniments


David Lebovitz - 2007
    Fragrant vanilla, toasted nuts, and spices. Heavy cream and bright liqueurs. Chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate. Every luscious flavor imaginable is grist for the chill in The Perfect Scoop, pastry chef David Lebovitz’s gorgeous guide to the pleasures of homemade ice creams, sorbets, granitas, and more. With an emphasis on intense and sophisticated flavors and a bountiful helping of the author’s expert techniques, this collection of frozen treats ranges from classic (Chocolate Sorbet) to comforting (Tin Roof Ice Cream), contemporary (Mojito Granita) to cutting edge (Pear-Pecorino Ice Cream), and features an arsenal of sauces, toppings, mix-ins, and accompaniments (such as Lemon Caramel Sauce, Peanut Brittle, and Profiteroles) capable of turning simple ice cream into perfect scoops of pure delight.

Going Solo in the Kitchen


Jane Doerfer - 1995
    At last, a supremely practical cookbook designed expressly for single people!With more than 350 superb yet simple recipes for all occasions--and loaded with time-and-money-saving strategies for buying, storing, and recycling food in quantities that won't get wasted--Going Solo in the Kitchen is for solo cooks who don't want to spend a lot of time in the kitchen but who are tired of take-out, and who want to eat food that's delicious, nutritious, and inexpensive.Whether it's a quick one-dish meal of Saut�ed Beef with Mushrooms, a satisfying soup supper such as Vegetable Bean Soup with crusty bread, a summer night's dinner of Avocado, Papaya, and Shrimp Salad, or a Sunday splurge of Chicken Breast Baked with Garlic (with enough leftovers for a sandwich at work the next day and a cold chicken salad later in the week), here is food that will lure beginners and seasoned cooks alike into the kitchen, putting a variety of flavors and a wealth of taste into every meal.

The Good Cook


Simon Hopkinson - 2011
    The Good Cook is the result of over 40 years' experience and is based on Simon's belief that a good cook loves eating as much as cooking. How the ingredients you choose and the way you cook them will turn a good recipe into a great dish. That a cheap cut of meat cooked with care can taste as nice as a choice cut prepared by indifferent hands.Structured around Simon's passion for good ingredients (Anchovy and Aubergine, Cheese and Wine, Smoked and Salted Fish, Ham, Bacon and A Little Pig) and written with Simon's trademark perfectionism and precision, this is a book that you will cherish for life.

Circle of Friends - 25 Pie, Crisp & Cobbler Recipes


Gooseberry Patch - 2013
    This collection features 25 down-home desserts like Apple Blush Pie, Cherry Brownie Cobbler and Pumpkin Custard Crunch...all guaranteed to be scrumptious and easy as pie to make!

Smitten Kitchen Every Day: Triumphant and Unfussy New Favorites


Deb Perelman - 2017
    Whether we’re cooking for ourselves, for a date night in, for a Sunday supper with friends, or for family on a busy weeknight, we all want recipes that are unfussy to make with triumphant results. Deb thinks that cooking should be an escape from drudgery. Smitten Kitchen Every Day: Triumphant and Unfussy New Favorites presents more than one hundred impossible-to-resist recipes—almost all of them brand-new, plus a few favorites from her website—that will make you want to stop what you’re doing right now and cook. These are real recipes for real people—people with busy lives who don’t want to sacrifice flavor or quality to eat meals they’re really excited about.You’ll want to put these recipes in your Forever Files: Sticky Toffee Waffles (sticky toffee pudding you can eat for breakfast), Everything Drop Biscuits with Cream Cheese, and Magical Two-Ingredient Oat Brittle (a happy accident). There’s a (hopelessly, unapologetically inauthentic) Kale Caesar with Broken Eggs and Crushed Croutons, a Mango Apple Ceviche with Sunflower Seeds, and a Grandma-Style Chicken Noodle Soup that fixes everything. You can make Leek, Feta, and Greens Spiral Pie, crunchy Brussels and Three Cheese Pasta Bake that tastes better with brussels sprouts than without, Beefsteak Skirt Steak Salad, and Bacony Baked Pintos with the Works (as in, giant bowls of beans that you can dip into like nachos). And, of course, no meal is complete without cake (and cookies and pies and puddings): Chocolate Peanut Butter Icebox Cake (the icebox cake to end all icebox cakes), Pretzel Linzers with Salted Caramel, Strawberry Cloud Cookies, Bake Sale Winning-est Gooey Oat Bars, as well as the ultimate Party Cake Builder—four one-bowl cakes for all occasions with mix-and-match frostings (bonus: less time spent doing dishes means everybody wins).Written with Deb’s trademark humor and gorgeously illustrated with her own photographs, Smitten Kitchen Every Day is filled with what are sure to be your new favorite things to cook.

The Essence of Chocolate: Recipes for Baking and Cooking with Fine Chocolate


John Scharffenberger - 2006
    Founded in 1996 by Robert Steinberg, a physician and amateur chef, and John Scharffenberger, an award-winning vintner, the company's confections have won a following among food professionals and home cooks alike. Now, in their first cookbook, the duo shares their passion with the world.The Essence of Chocolate features more than one hundred spectacular -- and often simple -- recipes drawn from the Scharffen Berger files and from two dozen top pastry chefs. It is divided into three sections: "Intensely Chocolate," which includes such decadent treats as That Chocolate Cake, in which the sumptuous flavor of chocolate is the star; "Essentially Chocolate," with lighter chocolate desserts like White Velvet Cake with Milk Chocolate Ganache or Brown Butter Blondies; and "A Hint of Chocolate," with recipes that use chocolate's spicier qualities to their best effect, like Vegetarian Chili and John's Cocoa Rub. And all will work magnificently with any high-quality chocolate. Filled with helpful tips, sumptuous photographs, and the story of how chocolate is really made, here is a book that is every bit as seductive as its subject.Robert Steinberg had been practicing medicine for twenty years when he went to France in 1994 to explore chocolate making, then returned to his own kitchen to create the first versions of what would be Scharffen Berger chocolate. He lives in San Francisco and until recently practicedat the San Francisco Free Clinic. John Scharffenberger founded Scharffenberger Cellars, one of the premier sparkling wine manufacturers in the United States. He sold his interest in the winery, and in 1996 he and Steinberg founded Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker. Scharffenberger lives in Berkeley and Mendocino County.

Back to Baking: 200 Timeless Recipes to Bake, Share, and Enjoy


Anna Olson - 2011
    With a section on baking troubleshooting or tips on accurate measuring, Anna helps novice bakers bypass any kitchen disaster and move right on to produce perfect baked goods every time.Back to Baking is about enjoying the process of baking itself, (making those extras that can have a place in a balanced diet), in modest portions. Making something from scratch gives you control. You know what you're making, what's going into the dish, and how it's being prepared. Because these delights are homemade, the recipes can suit those with food intolerances and allergies. With entire chapters on dairy-free, egg-free, gluten-free, and low-fat/low-sugar baking, this book has recipes for everyone you love.

Good Eats: The Middle Years


Alton Brown - 2010
    Showcasing everything Alton Brown fans (and they are legion!) have ever wanted to know about his award-winning television show, The Middle Years is chock-full of behind-the-scenes photographs and trivia, science-of-food information, cooking tips, and—of course—recipes.Brown’s particular genius lies in teaching the chemistry of cooking with levity and exuberance. In episodes such as “Fit to Be Tied” (meat roulades), “Crustacean Nation” (crab), and “Ill-Gotten Grains” (wheat products), Brown explains everything from how to make the perfect omelet to how to stuff your own sausages. With hundreds of entertaining photographs, along with Brown’s inimitable line drawings and signature witty writing, this comprehensive companion book conveys the same wildly creative spirit as the show itself.