Baking: 350 Recipes and Techniques, 1,500 Photographs, One Baking Education Baking: 350 Recipes and Techniques, 1,500 Photographs, One Baking Education | By James Peterson | (10 Speed Press; $40 hardcover)
Posted by Kim Davaz • 03/10/10 • 6:00am
Get an education while you bake up a storm
Step-by-step photographs and detailed directions give cooks everything they need to know about baking
By Kim Davaz
“Baking: 350 Recipes and Techniques, 1,500 Photographs, One Baking Education.” There you have it. Just about everything you need to know to start baking or raising your personal baking bar, all in one place. Author James Peterson, whose 14 other cookbooks include two James Beard Award winners (“Sauces” and “Cooking”), is a cooking instructor at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York.
“Baking” is indeed an education. Peterson explains every little detail of every single recipe. He tells you to grease nonstick pans, what kind of scraper to use and how to fold parchment paper into cones to hold icing for piping decorations.
The step-by-step photos make this book the teaching tool that it is. It’s not that the words aren’t great, but the photos bring them to life. As if it isn’t enough that Peterson is an excellent food writer, he also took the photographs for “Baking.”
In the bread section, the photos show how to braid a loaf. The three strands of dough are red, white and blue to make the braiding process very clear. Want to know how to fill and form a double-crusted fruit pie? Look at Page 166. Adventurous enough to attempt croissants? Page 156. Want to make a gorgeous strawberry marzipan cake? (Don’t bother attempting to make this with anything but perfectly ripe Oregon strawberries.) It’s all there on pages 86 through 89.
The one issue I have with “Baking” is that there are clusters of color photographs with no identifying information. What kind of bread is that? What are those diamond-shaped cookies sprinkled with sugar? Where can I find the flat apple tart opposite the table of contents? I did flip straight to the index to find the recipe for the easily identified banana cream pie.
Working your way through “Baking” will be a delicious adventure. Your family and friends will thank you.
Shortbread has the advantage of getting better with age, so it’s the perfect make-ahead cookie. This version has the added bonus of being baked as a large, flat rectangle that is cut after cooking, so no fiddly cutting with cookie cutters. (And they are probably the unidentified diamond cookies on page 242.)
This recipe makes a salty sweet cookie. Peterson suggests cutting the salt in half if that doesn’t suit you. Try it both ways.
Shortbread Cookies
Makes 35 cookies.
- 1¾ cups flour
- 1 teaspoon salt (or ½ teaspoon for less salty shortbread)
- 1 cup butter, cut in ½-inch slices
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- ¼ cup turbinado sugar
In a bowl, whisk together the flour and salt. Combine the butter and granulated sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer and cream the butter using the paddle attachment blade on medium to high speed for about 1 minute, or until fluffy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a silicone spatula, and beat for 1 minute more. Turn off the mixer, add the flour mixture, and turn the mixer on at low speed. Gradually increase the speed to medium and beat for about 1 minute, or until the dough clumps together and you hear the motor straining. The dough will first look like grated Parmesan cheese, then fine gravel, then coarse gravel, and finally a cohesive mass.
Transfer the dough to a sheet of parchment paper that will just fit into a sheet pan. Use a rolling pin and your fingers to press the dough into a 9-by-12-inch rectangle about 1/3 inch thick. Trim the sides to even up the rectangle and roll the trimmings into the center of the rectangle. Sprinkle evenly with the turbinado sugar, if using. Transfer the dough to a sheet pan by lifting each end of the parchment paper. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Bake for about 15 minutes, or until golden brown on top.
Slice the rectangle, while still hot, into 1-inch-wide strips. Cut across the strips by making 4 slices, 2 1/4 inches apart, at about a 30-degree angle with the 1-inch strips, to form diamonds. Let cool completely on the parchment paper before serving. Store tightly sealed in an airtight container for up to 1 week.
Kim Davaz writes a biweekly cookbook review column for The Register-Guard.
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