Classic 1000 Cake & Bake Recipes

by Wendy Hobson

There's something really special about the delicious aroma of home baking, and cutting into that perfect, freshly baked, home-made cake is something we should all find time to do once in a while! Plus, it's healthier to bake your own cakes, as you can avoid the hydrogenated fats they use in commercially bought cakes to extend their shelf life. Already a hugely successful title, this classic collection of 1000 home-baking recipes now has the colour treatment - with stunning colour images to extend the appeal and give a guide to the range and style to be found in this excellent recipe collection.

Genres: Cookbooks

Paperback

First published June 28, 1998

Reviews

[Jan-Maat]

It's probably wrong to say that I have read this, but then again, it is not exactly a book; more a collection of recipes cut out of magazines and newspapers and reproduced in book format. Perhaps that is not actually the case but simply is the aesthetic that the publisher wanted to achieve, then again, perhaps that is more or less what every cookbook is except for those written before the advent of magazines and newspapers with recipes in them.

I bought the book in Canterbury in a branch of a chain bookshop, they had two branches in Canterbury. One had Roman remains on display behind glass on the way down to the basement and the other one didn't. Anyhow, I got this book with the innocent though that a thousand recipes would be enough for baking for any number of birthdays as well as secular or religious holidays. In fact I have probably made more use of recipes outside it than inside it over the years.

Still I have dog eared a few pages, left markers in others, stained the ends of the pages with my batter stained thumb, and written notes against some of the recipes, advising myself to let syrups cool before use and to spoon rather than pour over the cake - which just as I said last time, is not a mistake I will be making again.

It does have a few colour photographs, but not of anything I have been minded to try and make, good God would I really make a Battenburg cake? What am I? A monarchist or something? The paucity of plates can be a problem, I certainly find it helpful - though occasionally discouraging - to have some idea of what a finished product ought to look like, as something to work towards, though perhaps in truth the lack of pictures is a true masterstroke - yes of course it is meant to be as flat as that, and that is definitely the colour it is meant to be, no, no there isn't a picture I can show you to prove that, look I'm sure it will taste ok, probably...

[Lili · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very easy cake recipes anyone can follow.

[Michele Ide-smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent reference book with an astonishingly wide range of recipes. I've never had a recipe fail from this book, so I have come to trust and rely on it. Only slight criticism is the lack of images.