The Baker's Appendix: The Essential Kitchen Companion, with Deliciously Dependable, Infinitely Adaptable Recipes: A Baking Book

by Jessica Reed

The ultimate quick, yet thorough, reference for bakers, with every metric conversion and ingredient substitution you could want, plus 18 recipes for basic, fail-proof cakes, frostings, and cookies—with variations that combine to make dozens of desserts.

Bakers will wonder how they ever lived without this indispensable resource,

• Cups-to-grams conversions for ingredients
• Basic recipes for cakes, quick breads, cookies, frostings, and more, with dozens of variations
• Ingredient substitutions
• DIY extracts, natural food colorings, sprinkles, and more
• Decorating tips for cakes and cookies
• Conversions for oven temperatures
• Adjustments for baking at high altitudes
• Volume charts for baking pans of all sizes

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Food, Nonfiction, Reference

112 pages, Hardcover

Published March 21, 2017

Reviews

[Antigone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jessica Reed, a baker from Brooklyn, got tired of hunting through her many cookbooks to locate a solid conversion chart. The charts were there, in a few of them, but these were specific and often incomplete. Where could she find, say, the weight in grams of a cup of honey? The volume in cups of an eight-by-eight-inch square baking pan? This really only matters to pastry chefs who need their creations to be consistent over time; texture, taste and appearance a dependable result - assuming, of course, the weather is right and the timers are accurate. (Baking has so many variables that it's safe to say it's a magic art.) In order to make her aproned life a tiny bit easier, she's produced this useful little book filled with metrics and weights and altitude adjustments.

Yes, I suppose a baker could get most of this information speedily enough off a computer...if, that is, they don't mind buttery fingers sliding across the keyboard or sugar clogging up the mechanism of the mouse. Because the truth about baking is that it's not a procedure, it's a craft. Crafts are messy, and creative, and mood matters here - and if your baker isn't having a certain amount of fun? I'd hesitate to pick up that fork if I were you. So, yeah, a little knock-around book of conversions is a hell of a thing to have.

While it wasn't necessary for Ms. Reed to add anything else to the mix (so to speak), she was very kind and did. There are five foundational recipes for cakes and cookies and a quick bread, fourteen frostings, fillings, glazes and the like, lists of serviceable substitutions, and the most precious throwback of a guide converting antique measurements to the modern day. (A walnut-sized portion of butter, a teacup's worth, a salt spoon's worth, a "handful" of whatever.) Welcome to the fun.

If you're a baker...even a baker without a scale and no intention to get one...you might want to take a gander at this. It's useful, inspirational, and likely to solve a few hiccups before they lurch into full-fledged problems.

[Mickey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a useful book, especially if you are baking from older recipe books that use volume instead of weight for your baking needs. Newer books on baking almost always list ingredients by weight in grams. A good digital scale is an essential baking tool.

The last few chapters contains useful tips for the home baker. And yes most of this information can be found by google.

[Kristin Kieda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book randomly while christmas shopping for family at a large chain bookstore in LA. The moment that I flipped through the pages, I knew that I had found something amazing. So I bought it for myself and I can't imagine life without it!

As a professional baker, consistency is key. If your recipes come out differently every time you make them, people will not order them. This book has helped me maintain my standards. I have used this book to convert all of my recipes to metric. It even has a section for "lost measures" such as "an egg of butter", so you can feel confident transcribing family heirloom recipes to something reliably repeatable. There are several places where I have made margin notes, some things are not 100% perfect, but if you pay attention you will catch them too and besides, the errors are in the stupidest places where it literally won't matter unless you're trying to do crazy bulk stuff.

I no longer use measuring cups, thanks to this book. I keep my measuring spoons because I don't trust my scale to weigh 5g accurately, but that's it. Otherwise it's pure metric weight, baby!! And it's amazing! After I started using this book to convert recipes, I found myself in a situation where I needed to learn baker's percentages - while the book didn't teach me that math, it sure as hell made it a lot easier to apply the principles and learn as I went.

I am so in love with this reference book! If you are a baker and you are serious about your results, you should get this book and convert everything to metric weight. You will thank me for my recommendation, and Ms. Reed for her excellent book, I promise!

[KM Bezner · Rating 5 out of 5]

This little book is a must-have resource for bakers and cooks of all skill levels. It includes conversion charts, common substitutions, and even a guide on how to adjust your recipes depending on your altitude--something I would have never even considered before reading this book. Reed also includes a section on traditional recipes, accompanied by dozens of variations for when you’re ready to move beyond the basics.

[A · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely little book of useful measurements and guides. Sure you can look it up online, but this is all in one place and well organized. Loved the historical measurement conversions, as my great grandmother has a lot of "butter the size of a walnut" and similar things slipped throughout her recipes.

[Dan Stern · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent book for all bakers. Incredible in-depth charts for all manner of measurement calculations. The lay-out is excellent, with main recipes and all their variations well laid out. I highly recommend this book; it is indeed an essential tool for the baking kitchen.

[Donna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned to bake before kitchen scales were common, so I'm used to dirtying lots of measuring cups, but I get that weighing is quicker/easier. This book includes tables to help you convert the volume measurements in older recipes, which sounds helpful, but I found the layout (Kindle ebook) a bit annoying - wouldn't a single page listing the equivalences of a dozen common ingredients (for example, 1 c flour, 1 c sugar, 1 c milk. . .) be easier to reference than a separate page for each ingredient (for example, 1 c flour, 3/4 c flour, 2/3 c flour)? Another quibble: I was leery about the accuracy of the general weight/volume conversion pages - are all jams/ jellies or all seeds really the same density?

Having the volumes for various pan sizes in one place was helpful, but even though I'm pretty sure I already own a cookbook with that information, I almost always google the question on the fly when increasing/decreasing a cake recipe; it just always seems faster than opening up another cookbook. You could argue that this is a bad habit, and owning this book would result in less floury fingerprints on my phone :p

The recipe section might be most helpful for less experienced bakers (folks who don't already have a tried and true recipe for chocolate cake, vanilla cake, sugar cookie, etc).

Given the dog eared cookbooks already on my shelf and access to the internet, not sure I can justify adding this to the collection, but YMMV.

[Dawnmarie · Rating 5 out of 5]

How have I lived without this book

[Chani Childers · Rating 2 out of 5]

I felt it was just straight cut and dry and honestly it wasn't worth my time to read. I thought there would be a lot more recipes but nope.

[Jacqui Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

It a great resource and interesting little quips, doesn't have everything in it though.

[estar* · Rating 4 out of 5]

The kindle version is a little buggy but lots of helpful info for baking in one volume.

[Josh Francois · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential for any baker! The recipes are foolproof and the explanations are very thorough

[Michelle Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful, wonderful reference! Will thoroughly use as I'm a stickler for precision and weighing ingredients. Only reason I gave 4 stars is the authors choice of aesthetics over functionality in the physical book. I'd much prefer a spiral bound, less delicate book that will surely get spilled on, dog eared, and written in over the years.