Toast: The Cookbook

by Raquel Pelzel, Evan Sung (Photographer)

The ultimate canvas for sweet and savory culinary creativity. 50 seasonal recipes that reimagine the "bread and butter" of cuisine with simple ingredients in surprising ways. Easy enough for breakfast, yet suitable for brunch, lunch, dinner and even dessert, the possibilities of heaping beautiful seasonal ingredients on bread are limitless. Organized by season, Toast features 50 recipes from savory to sweet that unleash the power of fresh ingredients and simple techniques guaranteed to impress and satisfy any kitchen audience on any occasion. Award-winning food writer Raquel Pelzel's relatable and accessible recipes span generations and cultures, and shatter expectations of what this humble favorite can be. Broiled or char-grilled, pan-fried or deep-fried, a good slice of bread is the ultimate platform to showcase your culinary skills. Toast will teach you to simply and effectively wow friends and family with creative, delicious combinations of ingredients from summer tomato salad, or pickled shrimp and avocado, to roasted squash and molten cheese, poached egg and fried pancetta, or even s'mores. So much more than just bread and butter, toast is experiencing a global renaissance. Professional chefs are seizing on the creative potential of a beautiful canvas of bread and delivering sophisticated culinary masterpieces that showcase their own brilliant palettes. Toast invites home cooks to join the ranks of renowned chefs in their experiments and even brings some of their recipes to life with contributions by 8 celebrity chefs including Hugh Acheson, Deb Perelman (The Smitten Kitchen), Fergus Henderson (St. John) and more. As simple or as sophisticated as you want it to be, yet always comforting and nourishing, Toast is perfect for those looking for seasonal, market-inspired recipes, or gourmet treats presented in an approachable manner. With something for every palate and occasion, this is the ideal book for new and seasoned cooks alike as well as everyone from college students and recent graduates to newlyweds and empty nesters. Artisanal toast is a hit in the media with features on Today, GMA, and NPR, and on the pages of The New Yorker, San Francisco Chronicle, Guardian, and Bon Appétit.

Genres: Cookbooks, Nonfiction, Food, Cooking, Adult

120 pages, Hardcover

First published September 14, 2015

Reviews

[Sana Abdulla · Rating 3 out of 5]

I looked through the book which deserves 3.5 stars. Every recipe stands alone in its own page, which is normally good but the recipes are fussy and often pretentious, which is contrary to the essence of toast, a process that sprung from trying to make stale bread edible, hence a single recipe needs a full page anyway. But on the opposite page we have a lovely picture of the end product.
The book is sectioned in seasons, autumn, the first season is awful but the rest are pretty good. There are quite a few toasties for the sweet toothed among us.
If toast means more to you than crunchy bread with butter and jam or a slice of cheese, this is a book you will enjoy.

[Daisy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little too specialized, but cute.

[Dray · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've come to enjoy toast more as i get older and this book has a lot beyond the current avocado toast craze. Some very yummy recipes. Curiously, they devote almost no space to talking about the bread used to make toast, which is at least half the equation.

[Therese · Rating 3 out of 5]

always looking for new ideas, so i picked this up at the library

[Scott Andrews · Rating 5 out of 5]

perfect for what it is.

[ZZ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I do not have an oven. After reading this book, I'm thinking of buying.

[Lilah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book made me rethink toast. The book is about toast and the various toppings to put on it. The toppings suggested update the classics and offer new suggestions to turn your toast into a meal. The book starts with a primer on different ways to toast bread. For this book, you may want to use thicker pieces of bread than a normal toaster can handle. There are fifty tasty options in this book. The authors uses fruit (maple pear and fig jam, roasted strawberries and ricotta), updates the basics (cinnamon toast by using a cinnamon syrup), offers a variety of breakfast selections (smashed tot and egg), tuns things upside down (cranberry upside down toast), throws in Scandinavian themed toasts and finally offers dessert (s'more toast). The author even updated my go to meal, the tuna melt. I will be making this tuna melt again and again. The book also has great photos of all the recipes.

[Marianthi · Rating 2 out of 5]

A little too esoteric for me.