Wednesday 6 June 2012

Recipe book review: Baked in America



I have so many recipe books that I've decided to start reviewing them on this blog! It will be a mixture of new and older books, some by well known bakers and chefs and some less known. The reviews will all take the same format and I'll aim to give an overview of the book. They are all books that I already possess, and either bought or was given as a birthday/Christmas gift - unless any nice publishers out there want to send me some new books to review!

First up is one of my newest books that I was given as a birthday present - and best of all, it's signed by the authors! They are customers/ friends of my boyfriend's mum, so she got me their book for my birthday and asked them to write a message for me inside.

Book title  Baked In America
Author Outsider Tart - David Lesniak & David Muniz
Publisher Ebury Press
Price/RRP £16.99 (hardback), though it was received as a gift.

Where did I get it? A birthday present from my boyfriend's mum.

The blurb on the back "When it comes to baking, Americans clearly know a thing or two. Be it gooey chocolate brownies, muffins bursting with berries or whoopie pies oozing sweet buttercream, many teamtime (or whenver time) favourites hail from across the pond.
Davids Muniz and Lesniak own the delicious American bakery Outsider Tart in London. Devoted to all things butter and sugar, they are single-handedly leading a revolution: the revival of humble home-baked treats."

Overview of book A broad selection of decadent recipes arranged in chapters like brownies and bars, cookies, whoopie pies, layer cakes - it's quite rare that I find every section as tempting as the next! Interestingly, frostings and finishes have their own chapter at the end - the two Davids believe you should be able to mix and match and not have to stick to a particular frosting recipe with a particular cake. Which sounds great in principle, but when I did make a cake from this, I struggled to pick a frosting recipe that I thought went with it! The first chapter is the story of how the two Davids got to where they are today and also some general baking and equipment tips, which is really interesting and well written. The book has a nice American slant and each recipe begins with an explanation or anecdote, which allows the character of the two authors and their bakery to really come through.

First recipe in the book (I thought this might give a nice snapshot of the kinds of recipes included)
Snickers brownies. Hell yeah - what a way to start!

Last recipe in the book King Charles Pudding Receipt. This takes a little explaining - basically it's a sort of Huguenot Torte, related to the Huguenots of King Charles, and receipt is of course recipe. It seems to be a kind of apple and walnut cake that sounds really intriguing.

Random recipe from the middle of the book (in case first and last are not particularly representative) NYC crumb cake -  a vanilla and cinnamon flavour cake that is a New York speciality.

Quality/number of photographs Not every recipe has a photo but the ones that are in there are good - and have a sort of rustic feel, e.g. a lot of the cakes are sitting on wooden worktops or chopping boards rather than being carefully arranged on plates. Which is more like how it would look when you bake the recipes at home, which I like.

Number of pages 223 - definitely feel like you get your money's worth!

Have I baked anything from this book? Yes - the walnut espresso layer cake on p. 173. I haven't blogged about it yet though! I am not the biggest fan of coffee cake (I made this for someone's birthday) but it was a lovely light cake. I did have trouble picking a suitable frosting from the chapter at the end so just went with a standard buttercream frosting with some coffee added. I've only had this book just over a month, and will definitely be using it again.

Overall impression in three words Chatty, indulgent, American!

12 comments:

  1. I love this book too! My sister bought it last summer and as I was living with her I baked from it a lot, I've been missing it since I moved away from her but I may be moving back to London next weekend to live with her again so I'm excited to bake from it again! I would definitely recommend your next bake to be the triple XXX cookies (or as I like to call them chubby hubbies), they are hands down my fave thing I've baked so far from it!

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    1. Ooh, you're moving to London? That's exciting! We should have a bloggers meetup for those of us who all live here... just an informal trip to go and eat cake somewhere!

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    2. I'm SO up for that...especially since I've been tasty cake deprived since living in North Wales! Sounds like a plan!

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  2. I've got this book and love it, too. I particularly like their chapter on ingredients and their explanations of what they are and what they use / can be substituted with. The recipes all sound fab, too, although I haven't baked anything from it yet! :)

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    1. I should have read that chapter first but was too impatient and baked something right away... and realised I didn't have the right ingredients! I never thought to check what they recommended as a substitute, never mind - it turned out well anyway!

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  3. I haven't seen this book before. Sounds interesting and a lot of fun. Looking forward to seeing what you make from it.

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    1. I've made one thing but not posted it on my blog yet - and as usual I couldn't get hold of the exact ingredients so I'm not sure it's an entirely fair review as it wasn't 100% their recipe! I should have read the chapter Susie mentioned first lol

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  4. Sounds like an interesting book. I'm trying to be good and not buy any new ones at the moment, but I'll cave fairly soon! Look forward to seeing more in your series of book reviews - it's a great idea! I've got so many books that I rarely even open let alone cook from, so if you pick any of them I may be inspired to dig them out again!

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  5. what an excellent idea to review your own books... I love to re-discover my own books, that's why I started random recipes because falling in love with a book again is a great thing!

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  6. I have the same book signed by the authors too! I met them at the chocolate festival. I've only made 1 recipe so far but have bookmarked about half the book!! Great idea reviewing your recipe books :)

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  7. if anyone think, where he find best recipe books for school than this blog is a best. We are also providing Female Friendly Recipe Books at the affordable rates.

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  8. I believe that book reviews are totally fine. I might try to purchase this and try those recipe on it!

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