Feb 15, 2009
Eater's Digest
By Teo Pau Lin
No, Magnolia Bakery is not the only famous bakery in New York to have a cookbook. Three others in the city have also published books to share their best-selling recipes, but with varying results.
BAKED: NEW FRONTIERS IN BAKING
By Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito
2008/Stewart, Tabori & Chang/207 pages/
Hardcover/$50.63/Books Kinokuniya
I so wanted this cookbook to work. Consider the premise: Two cute-looking guys ditch their advertising jobs to fulfil a dream of setting up an all-American bakery with lashings of personality.
Beyond the classics such as marble cake, red velvet cake, chocolate chip cookies, brownies and scones, their four- year-old bakery Baked also offers untraditional items that can only be dreamt up by men with a sweet tooth.
Check out the free- wheeling adaptations such as Root Beer Cake and Chocolate Stout Milkshake.
Maybe it's the pared-down, log-cabin look of their Brooklyn bakery, a style which is carried through in the book. Or maybe I just like the idea that men wearing black hoodies and sneakers can bake. But this book is certainly a breath of fresh air in a field dominated by twee, overly precious cookbooks.
I was thrilled that the Peanut Butter Crispy Bars - with chocolate and peanut butter spread on top of a bed of rice crispies - turned out gorgeously.
But I had a tougher time with their Malt Ball Cake. While the milk chocolate frosting was divine, the cake layers turned out gummy - their instructions for oven temperature and baking time could be at fault.
It was the other way round with their signature Sweet And Salty Cake. While the chocolate cake layers were possibly the best I've ever made, the recipe for the salty caramel frosting was a complete dud. Sugar heated up to 350 deg F yields not caramel but a vile, bitter sludge.
With such inconsistent recipes, this book is like that cute artist you want to bring home to Mum: sweet, interesting, but in need of a good clean-up.
THE SWEET MELISSA BAKING BOOK
By Melissa Murphy2008/Viking Studio/
240 pages/Hardcover/ $52.38/Page One Bookstore
This book is for the fans of Sweet Melissa Patisserie - and I mean it in the worst possible way.
For 10 years, the Brooklyn bakery has been dishing out all the American classics - Sticky Buns, Black Bottom Brownies, Carrot Cake and various tarts and cobblers. And the recipes are included in this book.
Owner-baker Melissa Murphy is a graduate of New York's French Culinary Institute, and describes her homespun desserts as French-influenced American in style - meaning that they taste as good as they look.
But you wouldn't know it if you've never stepped foot in her shop. Judging by the book alone, the goodies in the (only) eight photos look cold and lifeless and the recipe instructions are scant.
To make the Perfect Pound Cake, she says to whisk the eggs, sugar and salt 'until smooth'. Could she be any more vague? You could achieve different degrees of smoothness between 10 seconds and three minutes of whisking. No wonder my cake turned out as heavy as a brick.
This book is strictly for fans of the patisserie because you'd probably pick it up while in the shop, munching on a beautifully warm muffin and inspired to make some yourself.
But with instructions as sloppy as these, it's not likely that you'll succeed.
THE SWEETER SIDE OF AMY'S BREAD
By Amy Scherber and Toy Kim Dupree
2008/Wiley/254 pages/ Hardcover/$62.01/
Page One Bookstore
This isn't the most attractive of cookbooks.
The cover photo is out of focus, the photos inside aren't glamorously styled - it's all very 1980s D-I-Y.
But this book by the owner of Amy's Bread, a 16-year-old New York institution that has three cafes in Manhattan and sells bread wholesale to the city's top restaurants, is a keeper.
Unlike the other two titles with their unreliable recipes, this book seems genuine about helping you achieve the same bakery-standard cakes and bakes at home.
I love that each section for scones, muffins, breads, quiche, cookies, bars and cakes opens with a list of very helpful tips and techniques.
I love that every ingredient has its measurement listed separately in grams, ounces and volumes, so you won't go wrong.
And most of all, I love that I made the best butter cake I've ever attempted with its Simply Delicious Yellow Cake recipe. Buttery, eggy and wonderfully moist and fluffy, the cake is a bona fide gem.
Although the sugar needs to be cut down a little, the recipe for Nutty Peanut Butter Cookies is also delicious, with crunchy, salty peanuts in every bite.
It may not offer the aesthetic sass of other cookbooks, but it scores on content many times over.
No comments:
Post a Comment