The Cook's Illustrated Baking Book Author: Editors of Cook's Illustrated Magazine | Language: English | ISBN:
1936493586 | Format: PDF
The Cook's Illustrated Baking Book Description
- Hardcover: 518 pages
- Publisher: Boston Common Press (October 1, 2013)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1936493586
- ISBN-13: 978-1936493586
- Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 9.1 x 1.4 inches
- Shipping Weight: 4.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
The Cook's Illustrated Baking Book is a 518 page tome that compiles 450 recipes of delicious baked goods that most cooks can pull off in a home kitchen. It is divided as follows: baking basics; quick breads, muffins, and scones; sweet rolls, doughnuts, and coffee cakes; griddle cakes, waffles, and granola; yeasted rolls and loaves; pizza and focaccia; cookies; brownies and bars; snack cakes and fruit cakes; chiffon cakes, angel food cakes, pound cakes, and bundt cakes; layer cakes; fruit desserts and crepes; pies and tarts; savory tarts and quiches; pastry; baked custards, puddings, and soufflés; shopping guide; conversion notes; and index. As you can see, the editors at Cook's Illustrated were serious about giving the reader an encyclopedic array of baked goods to choose from and just in time for the fall and holiday baking frenzy.
The book is well bound. It is obviously heavy--you'll be using both hands and probably your lap if you carry this to bed for a little late night studying. It also stays open well on its own if you cook without a cookbook stand. The recipes are written in the well-known Cook's Illustrated style which includes a handy few paragraphs preceding each recipe on what makes the recipe work so well for the home cook whether that be using room temperature butter or whipping egg whites in a copper bowl. It's the basic science of the recipe that is covered in these introductions without getting too technical if that turns off the home cook. Many of the recipes also have some cooking techniques illustrated in the simple but easy to understand black and white line drawings that many readers are accustomed to seeing in the magazine. The index seems to be well cross-referenced and easy to use.
ATK has an interesting history with second editions; they oftenretitle them so it gets a little confusing sometimes whether the new one is a supplement or replacement for the old one. This is an extreme case; this book is a ground-up rewrite of Baking Illustrated, which is still in print. Since the original is a remarkably awesome book as both a tutorial and baking reference, it's worth examining this book in that context.
What's remarkable about it is how much has changed about what's fashionable in cooking trends in only nine years. The old book came before Jim Lahey's bread, something that radically changed home bread baking; accordingly, ATK's almost no-knead bread appears here. Their vodka-mediated pie dough appears here as well as their laminated blueberry scones. In other words, this book basically includes all the best work that they've done since the original book came out. It's a beautiful book, too; although the black-and-white photographs might be a bit off-putting to some people, there's plenty of how-to diagrams, sidebars, and callouts to get information across effectively.
But... there's that four-star rating, you ask. Well...
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