Baking and Books discussion

Know of a particularly great baking cookbook?

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I have scads of cookbooks that take up four different bookshelves in my apartment. Any book I use more than twice is going on this thread.

The Yan Can Cook Book - This remains a top favorite. Since I got this book at a bookcrossing meetup, I go to it almost every time that I want to make something. The recipes are amazingly simple, easy to understand and the dishes quick and easy to prepare. I've cooked chicken, beef, turkey and pork dishes that are soooo delicious. The only drawback is that the recipes come with sauces and the dishes run out before the sauce does. So I'm left with jars of sauce in the fridge that I can't use for anything else. (E.g., plum sauce for duck doesn't taste right on any other meat. :P)

Another cookbook is Five Minute Pasta Sauces by Michael Oliver. The sauces frequently take longer than five minutes to assemble and prepare but they're worth it. The book contains sections for cream, meat, seafood sauces et al. as well as suggestions about which sauce goes with which pasta. It would appeal to anyone who has lots of pasta around and doesn't want to go shopping for bottled varieties every time they whip up the spaghetti.

My absolute favourite baking book at the moment is Red Velvet And Chocolate Heartache, a cake book which is mostly gluten-free and uses vegetables to replace dairy fats and oils (although many of the toppings are buttercream so not totally milk-free but I'm sure folks who are milk-free can come up with a substitute). I have never had a dud cake from this book - without exception they come out light, moist and really tasty. Highly, highly recommended.

For cakes from my childhood I reach for the Be-Ro book - you may not know this if you're not from the UK. It was issued to my mother's generation in schools and she bought copies later on for me and my sister. I've recently bought copies to put away for my little girls, too. Good solid recipes for cakes and pastry which taste of my childhood. http://www.be-ro.co.uk/

Mains and savouries, I'm becoming a fan of Nigel Slater - I've had The 30-Minute Cook for a while and it's my go-to for changing up regular meals. I like his mid-week meals in The Guardian as well.

One of my very favorite baking books of all time is

Flour: Spectacular Recipes from Boston's Flour Bakery + Cafe

I have made a lot of things from this book and never once made anything bad.

I love the Father Dominic series starting with this one: Breaking Bread with Father Dominic. I also love the King Arthur Flour books.

Here's another favorite: Classic Desserts from the Dessert Maker Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk

I've had this book for over a quarter of a century, since I was still living in my mother's house. I started testing my then fledgling baking skills on my family only to have them complain that everything made with the condensed milk tasted of that ingredient.

Well. So I stopped using the recipe book--for them. But I have a sweet tooth and other people liked my cookies and bars. So I'd occasionally dip into it when I had a spare moment. I like condensed milk: its heaviness, the fact that it has only two ingredients (milk and sugar), its decided sweetness, its versatility.

It's been one of the books I've used repeatedly so often that it's suffered considerable damage through wear and tear. The book has a spiral cover and both the front and back of it have become separated from the pages so that it has to be bound together with a rubberband after each use. Some of the pages are speckled with foodstuff (luckily none of them stick together). There are notes scribbled in the margins (another way paper books beat Kindle; I'm betting that technology doesn't allow for marginalia!). Some day I'm going to have to replace it with a new copy but until then it remains a dearly cherished book.

I just had to post about this one. Someone has come up with a parody of Fifty Shades of Grey called Fifty Shades of Chicken. Oh my goodness. o.O

I had avoided reading the former book. I’ve learned from bitter experience that I should stay away from books merely because they are popular (or at least avoid paying full price for them). They are invariably over-hyped, idiotic, worthless pieces of trash, simply not worth the paper on which they’re written or I just don't get the thrill out of them that other people do.

Fifty Shades of Grey is supposed to be about BDSM but some people have read it and state that it is a gross misrepresentation of the BDSM scene and shows a lot of stereotypes, clichés or just plain wrongful information about what a loving BDSM scene is supposed to be. It includes depictions of barely consensual sex, stalking, insensitivity towards your partner’s needs, the idea that people who engage in this sort of behavior have to have a twisted childhood and the really terrible notion that this is a terrible perversion that can be “cured” through love and tenderness. Ugh.

But Fifty Shades of Chicken is sure to redeem it. It takes the idea of hurting someone and turns it on its head with chicken recipes. Ha! I’m grinning already and I haven’t even read it yet. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get my hot little hands on it.