Baking/sweets books

[Stone]

Can someone recommend a good book for baking sweets? I'm looking for something that will cover the basics of various cookies and cakes, custards, sauces, etc. (Not interested in candies or ice cream.)

Kind of like Peterson's book on sauces.

Thanks in advance.

Edited June 21, 2006 by Stone (log)

[alanamoana]

how about The Martha Stewart Baking Handbook?

lots of basic information good for a beginner.

of course there are a lot of professional books out there from the CIA, Wayne Gisslen, Bo Friberg, etc. but they are probably more expensive. this book isn't too much, but contains a lot of information and a lot of pictures.

and there are probably about twenty threads on this subject in the baking and pastry forum.

[CanadianBakin']

If you do a search there are several great threads on this already.

[RodneyCk]

I can recommend three good books on cookies.

1. My favorite for recipes, outstanding recipes, is Southern Living's All-Time Favorite Recipes. They have award winning cookie recipes of all varieties, a great section for holiday cookies, bars, logs, fudge balls, etc. Unfortunately, it is out of print, but you can still buy used copies. Check on Amazon.

2. I have heard that the King Arthur Cookie book or Companion is suppose to be really good, again for recipes. I may have to order this one myself. Again, check Amazon.

3. For decorating, Toba Garrett's Cookie book is the best. Her roll-out cookie recipes are really good and the butter flavor shines, plus she shows you all the insider tips and tricks to decorate.

Hope that helps.

[juliachildish]

For just cakes, I'd recommend Rose Levy Berenbaum's The Cake Bible. Pretty exhaustive as far as cakes go...and her Pie and Pastry Bible isn't bad, just not quite as good as the cake one.

It's hard to find one book that does it all, and does it exhaustively, and does it well. But like people said, do some searches and you'll find stuff.

For a book that's not exhaustive by any means, but is a lot of fun, I'd recommend Baking With Julia by Julia Child & Dorie Greenspan. It doesn't cover everything by any means at all, but it does have many knockout recipes, and it's gotten extensive use by me...

[Lindacakes]

Actually, I don't think there is any such thing. Not exhaustive. As has been said before, there are a lot of threads.

King Arthur is a good source. I own the Martha Stewart book, but for the pictures only. All sorts of books are arguably the best for different things.

I would highly recommend any Maida Heatter book. Her books cover a broad range of desserts, although the republished versions focus on cakes, pies and cookies separately. The chocolate book has just been re-released.

[SweetSide]

For books with good recipes and good instructional information, I like the following (not in any particular order):

Baking Illustrated (by the publishers of Cook's Illustrated)

Martha Stewart Baking Handbook

King Arthur Baking Companion

King Arthur Cookie (book? companion? it's downstairs....)

Those are non-professional books.

I gotta get me that Toba Garrett Cookie book....

[gia]

Toba Garrrett has a new book coming out this fall. I believe it's a professional cake decorating book.

[LindaL]

Good recomendations so far but just to add Classic Home Dessert by Richard Sax (big thick book).

[RodneyCk]

Toba Garrrett has a new book coming out this fall. I believe it's a professional cake decorating book.

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Good to know. I have and love her current cake decorating book.