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.

The Cake Bible


Rose Levy Beranbaum - 1988
    As a writer for food magazines, women's magazines, and newspapers, including The New York Times, Rose Levy Beranbaum's trademark is her ability to reduce the most complex techniques to easy-to-follow recipes. Rose makes baking a joy. This is the definitive work on cakes by the country's top cake baker.The Cake Bible shows how to:Mix a buttery, tender layer cake in under five minutes with perfect results every timeMake the most fabulous chocolate cake you ever imagined with just three ingredientsFind recipes for every major type of cake, from pancakes to four-tiered wedding cakesMake cakes with less sugar but maximum flavor and textureMake many low- to no- cholesterol, low-saturated-fat recipes

Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza


Ken Forkish - 2012
    For Portland-based baker Ken Forkish, well-made bread is more than just a pleasure—it is a passion that has led him to create some of the best and most critically lauded breads and pizzas in the country. In Flour Water Salt Yeast, Forkish translates his obsessively honed craft into scores of recipes for rustic boules and Neapolitan-style pizzas, all suited for the home baker. Forkish developed and tested all of the recipes in his home oven, and his impeccable formulas and clear instructions result in top-quality artisan breads and pizzas that stand up against those sold in the best bakeries anywhere. Whether you’re a total beginner or a serious baker, Flour Water Salt Yeast has a recipe that suits your skill level and time constraints: Start with a straight dough and have fresh bread ready by supper time, or explore pre-ferments with a bread that uses biga or poolish. If you’re ready to take your baking to the next level, follow Forkish’s step-by-step guide to making a levain starter with only flour and water, and be amazed by the delicious complexity of your naturally leavened bread. Pizza lovers can experiment with a variety of doughs and sauces to create the perfect pie using either a pizza stone or a cast-iron skillet. Flour Water Salt Yeast is more than just a collection of recipes for amazing bread and pizza—it offers a complete baking education, with a thorough yet accessible explanation of the tools and techniques that set artisan bread apart. Featuring a tutorial on baker’s percentages, advice for manipulating ingredients ratios to create custom doughs, tips for adapting bread baking schedules to fit your day-to-day life, and an entire chapter that demystifies the levain-making process, Flour Water Salt Yeast is an indispensable resource for bakers who want to make their daily bread exceptional bread.

The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook


Deb Perelman - 2012
    It’s as simple as that. She isn’t a chef or a restaurant owner—she’s never even waitressed. Cooking in her tiny Manhattan kitchen was, at least at first, for special occasions—and, too often, an unnecessarily daunting venture. Deb found herself overwhelmed by the number of recipes available to her. Have you ever searched for the perfect birthday cake on Google? You’ll get more than three million results. How do you choose? Where do you start? What if you pick a recipe that’s downright bad?So Deb founded her award-winning blog, smittenkitchen.com, on the premise that cooking should be a pleasure, and that the results of your labor can—and should be—delicious...every time. Deb is a firm believer that there are no bad cooks, just bad recipes. She has dedicated herself to finding the best of the best and adapting them for the everyday cook—the ones with little time to spare, little money to burn on unpronounceable ingredients, and little help in the kitchen. And now, with the same warmth, candor, and can-do spirit her blog is known for, Deb presents her first cookbook—more than 100 new recipes, plus a few favorites from her site, all gorgeously illustrated with hundreds of Deb’s beautiful color photographs.The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook is all about approachable, uncompromised home cooking: stepped-up comfort foods, stewy dishes for windy winter afternoons, an apple cake that will answer all questions: “What should my new signature dessert be?” “What is always welcome at a potluck?” “What did Deb consume almost single-handedly a week after having a baby?” These are the recipes you bookmark and use so often they become your own; recipes you slip to a friend who wants to impress her new in-laws; and recipes with simple ingredients that yield amazing results in a minimum amount of time. Deb tells you how to host a brunch and still sleep in—plus what to make for it!—and the essential items you need for your own kitchen. From salads and slaws that make perfect side dishes (or a full meal) to savory tarts and pizzas; from Mushroom Bourguignon to Pancetta, White Bean and Swiss Chard Pot Pies; from Buttered Popcorn Cookies to Chocolate Hazelnut Layer Cake, Deb knows just the thing for a Tuesday night, or your most special occasion.

Thug Kitchen: The Official Cookbook: Eat Like You Give a F*ck


Thug Kitchen - 2014
    Beloved by Gwyneth Paltrow ("This might be my favorite thing ever") and named Saveur's Best New Food blog of 2013—with half a million Facebook fans and counting—Thug Kitchen wants to show everyone how to take charge of their plates and cook up some real f*cking food.Yeah, plenty of blogs and cookbooks preach about how to eat more kale, why ginger fights inflammation, and how to cook with microgreens and nettles. But they are dull or pretentious as hell—and most people can't afford the hype.Thug Kitchen lives in the real world. In their first cookbook, they're throwing down more than 100 recipes for their best-loved meals, snacks, and sides for beginning cooks to home chefs. (Roasted Beer and Lime Cauliflower Tacos? Pumpkin Chili? Grilled Peach Salsa? Believe that sh*t.) Plus they're going to arm you with all the info and techniques you need to shop on a budget and go and kick a bunch of ass on your own.This book is an invitation to everyone who wants to do better to elevate their kitchen game. No more ketchup and pizza counting as vegetables. No more drive-thru lines. No more avoiding the produce corner of the supermarket. Sh*t is about to get real.

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.

Hello, Cupcake


Alan Richardson - 2008
    Spotting the familiar items in the hundreds of brilliant photos is at least half the fun.  America's favorite food photography team shows how to create funny, scary, and sophisticated masterpieces using a ziplock bag and common candies and snack items. With these easy-to-follow techniques, even the most kitchen-challenged cooks can:• raise a big-top circus cupcake tier for a kid's birthday• plant candy vegetables on Oreo earth cupcakes for a garden party• trot out a line of confectionery "pup cakes" for a dog fancier• serve spaghetti and meatball cupcakes for April Fool's Day• bewitch trick-or-treaters with eerie alien cupcakes• create holidays on icing with a white Christmas cupcake wreath, turkey cupcake place cards, and Easter egg cupcakes

Tartine Bread (Artisan Bread Cookbook, Best Bread Recipes, Sourdough Book)


Chad Robertson - 2010
    At 5 P.M., Chad Robertson's rugged, magnificent Tartine loaves are drawn from the oven. The bread at San Francisco's legendary Tartine Bakery sells out within an hour almost every day.Only a handful of bakers have learned the bread science techniques Chad Robertson has developed: To Chad Robertson, bread is the foundation of a meal, the center of daily life, and each loaf tells the story of the baker who shaped it. Chad Robertson developed his unique bread over two decades of apprenticeship with the finest artisan bakers in France and the United States, as well as experimentation in his own ovens. Readers will be astonished at how elemental it is.Bread making the Tartine Way: Now it's your turn to make this bread with your own hands. Clear instructions and hundreds of step-by-step photos put you by Chad's side as he shows you how to make exceptional and elemental bread using just flour, water, and salt.If you liked Tartine All Day by Elisabeth Prueitt and Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish, you'll love Tartine Bread!Additional categories for this book include:Baking BooksBaking Recipe BooksBaking Cook BooksBread Recipe Books

The Whimsical Bakehouse: Fun-To-Make Cakes That Taste as Good as They Look


Kaye Hansen - 2002
    There, mother-daughter bakers Kaye and Liv Hansen turn out some of the most charming, refreshingly eccentric cakes ever to grace a birthday or wedding celebration. Kaye and Liv believe that a cake should taste as good as it looks, so they skip esoteric (and inedible) decorations in favor of simple buttercream, flavored whipped cream, and tinted candymaker's chocolate, covering their luscious cakes with amusing designs and gorgeous color that are easy to make and delicious to eat. The cakes themselves are no less enticing, pairing old-fashioned favorites like Banana Cake and Spice Cake with sumptuous fillings such as French Custard and Chocolate Mousse. Simple step-by-step lessons, illustrated with photographs, explain how to re-create Liv's charming chocolate designs, from the bright polka dots that shine against dark chocolate glaze to the shimmering stars that adorn the enchanting "Starry Night." Templates for the delightful designs allow you to adapt these techniques to create your own unique decorations. With time-tested tips and complete information on everything from mixing colors to adjusting pan sizes, the Hansens explain all you need to know to get started. Whether you're dreaming of an elegant Chocolate Apricot Pecan Torte or a three-tiered butter cake filled with spiked mocha cream and embellished with fantastical spring flowers, The Whimsical Bakehouse is the ultimate guide to creating delicious, showstopping confections that are completely original.

Everyday Italian: 125 Simple and Delicious Recipes


Giada De Laurentiis - 2005
    And here, in her long-awaited first book, she does the same—helps you put a fabulous dinner on the table tonight, for friends or just for the kids, with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of flavor. She makes it all look easy, because it is. Everyday Italian is true to its title: the fresh, simple recipes are incredibly quick and accessible, and also utterly mouth-watering—perfect for everyday cooking. And the book is focused on the real-life considerations of what you actually have in your refrigerator and pantry (no mail-order ingredients here) and what you’re in the mood for—whether a simply sauced pasta or a hearty family-friendly roast, these great recipes cover every contingency. So, for example, you’ll find dishes that you can make solely from pantry ingredients, or those that transform lowly leftovers into exquisite entrées (including brilliant ideas for leftover pasta), and those that satisfy your yearning to have something sweet baking in the oven. There are 7 ways to make red sauce more interesting, 6 different preparations of the classic cutlet, 5 perfect pestos, 4 creative uses for prosciutto, 3 variations on basic polenta, 2 great steaks, and 1 sublime chocolate tiramisù—plus 100 other recipes that turn everyday ingredients into speedy but special dinners.What’s more, Everyday Italian is organized according to what type of food you want tonight—whether a soul-warming stew for Sunday supper, a quick sauté for a weeknight, or a baked pasta for potluck. These categories will help you figure out what to cook in an instant, with such choices as fresh-from-the-pantry appetizers, sauceless pastas, everyday roasts, and stuffed vegetables—whatever you’re in the mood for, you’ll be able to find a simple, delicious recipe for it here. That’s the beauty of Italian home cooking, and that’s what Giada De Laurentiis offers here—the essential recipes to make a great Italian dinner. Tonight.

How to Be a Domestic Goddess: Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking


Nigella Lawson - 1998
    Nigella's deliciously reassuring and mouthwatering cookbook demonstrates that it's not terribly difficult to bake a batch of muffins or a layer cake, but the appreciation and satisfaction they bring are disproportionately high. At last, a book that understands our anxieties, feeds our fantasies, and puts cakes, pies, pastries, breads, and biscuits back into our own kitchens.

Martha Stewart's Cupcakes: 175 Inspired Ideas for Everyone's Favorite Treat


Martha Stewart - 2009
    They are the star attraction for special days, such as birthdays, showers, and holidays, as well as perfect everyday goodies. In Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes, the editors of Martha Stewart Living share 175 ideas for simple to spectacular creations–with cakes, frostings, fillings, toppings, and embellishments that can be mixed and matched to produce just the right cupcake for any occasion. Alongside traditional favorites like yellow buttermilk cupcakes swirled with fluffy vanilla frosting and devil’s food cupcakes crowned with rich, dark chocolate buttercream, there are also sweet surprises such as peanut butter and jelly cupcakes, dainty delights like tiny almond-cherry tea cakes, and festive showstoppers topped with marizpan ladybugs or candy clowns. The book features cupcakes for everyone, every season, and every event: Celebrations (monogram heart cupcakes perfect for an elegant wedding); Birthdays (starfish-on-the-beach cupcakes sure to be a hit at children’s parties); Holidays (gumdrop candy ghouls and goblins ideal for Halloween revelers); and Any Day (red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting for a picnic, or caramel-filled mini chocolate cakes for grown-up gatherings). In singular Martha Stewart style, the pages are both stunning in design–with a photograph of each finished treat–and brimming with helpful how-to information, from step-by-step photographs for decorating techniques to ideas for packaging and presenting your cupcakes. Whether for any day or special days, the treats in Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes will delight one and all.

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.

Chocolates and Confections at Home with The Culinary Institute of America


Peter P. Greweling - 2009
    The Culinary Institute of America and baking and pastry arts professor Peter Greweling provide recipes and step-by-step techniques that make even the most ambitious treats simple for any home cook.In addition, Chocolates and Confections at Home includes ingredient and equipment information, packaging and storage practices, and troubleshooting tips for common preparation issues.Richly illustrated with more than 150 full-color photos that illustrate key techniques as well as finished confectionsCovers chocolates, truffles, toffees and taffies, fudge and pralines, marshmallows, jellies, nuts, and much moreAuthor Peter Greweling is a professor of baking and pastry arts at the CIA, as well as a Certified Master Baker and Certified Hospitality EducatorChocolates and Confections at Home is the ideal resource for anyone who wants to graduate from chocolate chip cookies to create impressively decadent delights.

Cravings: Recipes for All the Food You Want to Eat


Chrissy Teigen - 2016
    Maybe she’s making people laugh on TV. But all Chrissy Teigen really wants to do is talk about dinner. Or breakfast. Lunch gets some love, too.For years, she’s been collecting, cooking, and Instagramming her favorite recipes, and here they are: from breakfast all day to John’s famous fried chicken with spicy honey butter to her mom’s Thai classics. Salty, spicy, saucy, and fun as sin (that’s the food, but that’s Chrissy, too), these dishes are for family, for date night at home, for party time, and for a few life-sucks moments (salads). You’ll learn the importance of chili peppers, the secret to cheesy-cheeseless eggs, and life tips like how to use bacon as a home fragrance, the single best way to wake up in the morning, and how not to overthink men or Brussels sprouts. Because for Chrissy Teigen, cooking, eating, life, and love are one and the same.