Here are 55 books that Baking and Pastry fans have personally recommended if you like
Baking and Pastry.
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Lei Shishak is the author of numerous cookbooks including Beach House Dinners, Beach House Brunch, Beach House Baking, and Farm-to-Table Desserts. A graduate of Culinary Institute of America, Lei is the founder of Sugar Blossom Bake Shop in San Clemente, California. She is one of Southern California’s most respected bakers, having been honored as the Orange County Pastry Chef of the Year in 2011 by Riviera Magazine.
Pastry chef Kate Zuckerman shares her recipes from Chanterelle, the beloved, award-winning New York City restaurant. This book is a beautiful and complete look into a restaurant pastry chef’s world. The recipes cover a full spectrum of desserts from luscious tarts to cakes, cookies, custards, soufflés, and delightful confections. Readers will enjoy in-depth explanations of pastry techniques and the history of ingredients. Two of my favorite recipes in the book are the Roasted Apple Beignets and the Brandied Dried Fig Soufflé.
Say the word "Chanterelle" to a food-loving New Yorker and the first thing she thinks of is the beloved restaurant that put SoHo on the culinary map in 1979 and is now approaching its 25th anniversary in its new location in Tribeca. Kate Zuckerman, Chanterelle's pastry chef, has met and exceeded the high expectations of the restaurants' founders, David and Karen Waltuck, by creating exquisite desserts that draw upon her vast culinary experiences - both as a 4-star pastry chef in Boston, San Francisco and New York - and through her culinary travels to countries such as India. The Sweet…
Lei Shishak is the author of numerous cookbooks including Beach House Dinners, Beach House Brunch, Beach House Baking, and Farm-to-Table Desserts. A graduate of Culinary Institute of America, Lei is the founder of Sugar Blossom Bake Shop in San Clemente, California. She is one of Southern California’s most respected bakers, having been honored as the Orange County Pastry Chef of the Year in 2011 by Riviera Magazine.
Rose Levy Berenbaum is an incredible teacher, and this comes through in her cookbooks. The Pie and Pastry Bible includes over 300 recipes for pies, tarts, and any pastry you can imagine. There's even a chapter entirely devoted to crusts and another one solely on fillings and toppings! In every recipe, Ruth shares recipe variations, storage information, and pointers for success. As a bonus, recipes include both volume and weight measurements.
Lei Shishak is the author of numerous cookbooks including Beach House Dinners, Beach House Brunch, Beach House Baking, and Farm-to-Table Desserts. A graduate of Culinary Institute of America, Lei is the founder of Sugar Blossom Bake Shop in San Clemente, California. She is one of Southern California’s most respected bakers, having been honored as the Orange County Pastry Chef of the Year in 2011 by Riviera Magazine.
This small but informative book breaks down the ingredients used in baking and the science behind them. Readers will learn why ingredients like egg, flour, sugar, and milk are frequently used in pastry baking. The authors masterfully explain how ingredients transform during the baking process, like when an egg mixes with sugar or when baking soda combines with an acid. Each chapter ends with a helpful review written in a quiz format. You will become a better baker by reading this book. Note that there are no recipes in this book.
The essential-and accessible-guide to the science of baking Baking is as much a science as an art. That's why, in addition to mastering basic techniques and recipes, every baker must also learn about the science that underlies the baking craft. Guided by contemporary baking and pastry research and practice, this new edition of Joseph Amendola's invaluable reference gives readers knowledge that they can apply to their own baking-whether it's selecting the right flour, understanding how different leavening agents work, or learning about using new baking ingredients and additives to enhance favorite recipes. Written in a clear, easy-to-understand style, Understanding Baking…
Lei Shishak is the author of numerous cookbooks including Beach House Dinners, Beach House Brunch, Beach House Baking, and Farm-to-Table Desserts. A graduate of Culinary Institute of America, Lei is the founder of Sugar Blossom Bake Shop in San Clemente, California. She is one of Southern California’s most respected bakers, having been honored as the Orange County Pastry Chef of the Year in 2011 by Riviera Magazine.
Frozen desserts are an integral part of pastry baking that is sometimes overlooked. A pastry chef must be competent in ice cream and sorbets to secure work in any restaurant or hotel. The Perfect Scoop is an excellent introduction to the world of frozen desserts with recipes for ice cream, gelato, sorbets, sherbets, and granitas. Readers will also enjoy recipes for sauces, toppings, and mix-ins like butterscotch toffee and spiced pecans. Ice cream recipes include popular flavors like chocolate to fancier ones like chartreuse and lemon speculoos. The best part? All of the recipes yield batch sizes perfect for the home pastry baker.
A revised and updated edition of the best-selling ice cream book, featuring a dozen new recipes, a fresh design, and all-new photography. This comprehensive collection of homemade ice creams, sorbets, gelatos, granitas, and accompaniments from New York Times best-selling cookbook author and blogger David Lebovitz emphasizes classic and sophisticated flavors alongside a bountiful helping of personality and proven technique.
David's frozen favorites range from classic (Chocolate-Peanut Butter) to comforting (S'mores Ice Cream) and contemporary (Lavender-Honey) to cutting-edge (Labneh Ice Cream with Pistachio-Sesame Brittle). Also appearing is a brand new selection of frozen cocktails, including a Negroni Slush and Spritz Sorbet,…
I’m an award-winning cookbook author, photographer, and culinary instructor with a passion for local food and dessert. As a trained chef, I’ve worked behind the scenes of Cook’s Illustrated magazine and the TV show America’s Test Kitchen.I’ve also been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered and CBS Evening News. For cookbooks, I love beautifully styled photography that pulls me in and delicious, well-written recipes that work in a real home kitchen. I also like a cookbook that you can curl up with and read like a novel. I live outside Boston with my family, two high-maintenance cats, and a pair of well-worn roller skates.
Los Angeles-based pastry chef Rucker has compiled her favorite fruit-based brunch and dessert recipes into one tempting volume. Some of my favorites: Spiced Apple Wedding Cake, Huckleberry Blondies, and Kabocha Squash Pie.
There is some advanced technique here, but most of the ingredients are easy to find. With photography that is bright and inviting, this book is a good, modern addition to your seasonal baking library.
Fresh fruit-based desserts from beloved Los Angeles pastry chef and restaurateur Nicole Rucker.
Nicole Rucker is responsible for some of the most raved-about and Instagrammed pastries and baked goods in Los Angeles, first as the Pastry Chef at the hotspots Gjelina Take Away and Gjusta, then through her pie company Rucker's Pie and restaurant Fiona. In her debut cookbook, Rucker shares her obsession and her recipes with readers to help them achieve the same kind of magical alchemy she's perfected in fruit desserts.
To Rucker, fruit is every bit as decadent as chocolate cake and in this unique guide to…
I have loved French Pastry for as long as I can remember, all the way from my Mum’s kitchen as a kid in Belgium to my own kitchen here in Melbourne. I love it so much I quit my job as an architect 6 years ago to start a blog that focuses on baking and French pastry especially! This crazy experience took me all the way back to Paris to attend a French pastry program at Ecole Ducasse in 2019 and to publish my first cookbook on French pastry at the end of 2023.
I’m a sucker for a good éclair, and choux pastry is probably one of my favourite things to bake, so this book is a real goldmine!
I love that it breaks down the basic techniques of choux pastry and cream fillings but is also packed with creative recipes, original flavour associations, and gorgeous desserts.
It may not be the best book for beginners, but if you are looking for inspiration, it is an amazing book to browse through!
The newest darling in the world of baking - the classic French pastry has been embraced by a whole new generation of bakers. Making this classic at home is much easier than you think. And it is made easy by the fact that this book is written by one of Europe's top pastry chefs, Christophe Adam. With its straightforward approach, full colour pages and hundreds of step-by-step photographs, it is as though Christophe were by your side giving you a lesson in your home kitchen. Over the last dozen years, Christophe has perfected the eclair and has turned it into…
Whenever I’m asked about when I knew I wanted to be a pastry chef/baker, I always answer, “birth!” My maternal grandmother lived with us and she loved to bake; I was playing with dough as soon as I was old enough to stand on a chair next to the kitchen table. After college I faced a crisis: graduate school or culinary school – I chose the latter and I’ve never looked back. Adding teaching and writing to my love of baking led me to travel, taste, research, and learn new techniques and recipes to share. It’s a passion from which I’ll never retire.
In Good and Sweet, Brian Levy takes a radical approach to preparing delicious desserts – he uses no refined sugar but finds the necessary sweetness of his desserts from fruits (dried, juiced, or fresh), grains, dairy products, and nuts.
Before I tried any of the recipes, I have to admit that I was somewhat skeptical, but one taste of any of the recipes I tried made me realize that there are other ways to sweeten besides refined sugar. My favorites include Blueberry Biscuit Cobbler, Cherry Coconut Clafoutis, Figgy Cheesecake, Rosemary Lemon Shortbread, and Spiced Pumpkin Pie.
Levy also incorporates whole grain flour when appropriate as high-quality flour provides a sweetness of its own.
ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR: Los Angeles Times, Serious Eats
Groundbreaking recipes for real desserts—sweetened entirely by fruit and other natural, unexpectedly sweet ingredients—from a pastry cook who’s worked at acclaimed restaurants in New York and France.
Brian Levy spent years making pastries the traditional way, with loads of refined sugar and white flour, at distinguished restaurants, inns, and private homes in the United States and Europe. But he discovered another world of desserts—one that few bakers have explored—where there’s no need for cane sugar or coconut sugar, for maple syrup or honey, or for anything like…
Rick Rodgers is an award-winning culinary teacher and cookbook writer who has made a specialty of books on baked goods. His book Kaffehaus explores the delicious sweets of the Austro-Hungarian coffee culture. With two of America’s most iconic bakeries, he is the co-author of The Model Bakery Cookbook and Sarabeth's Bakery, as well as Coffee And Cake, Tea And Cookies, and Williams-Sonoma Comfort Food.
This prim tome may not have any photos, and the author’s voice is somewhat terse, but she comes across with excellent recipes. This is the cookbook that started me on the road to professional baking, as the desserts I made for my novice dinner parties were such hits that I got stars in my eyes. It is definitely Francocentric, but that is a very good place to start if you are a beginner, and if you are an experienced cook, you can’t go wrong with her basic formulas.
I am a baking blogger with a serious love for all things '80s and all things sweet. Cupcakes are my passion but I have a huge sweet tooth for all types of desserts. I created my blog, "Cake Me Home Tonight," to share my passion for baking, easy and delicious recipes, and baking tips and tutorials to inspire home bakers to elevate their baking game. I am always inspired and motivated by my favorite cookbook authors and baking bloggers to create dessert recipes with a nostalgic twist. I hope these books satisfy your sweet tooth as much as they have mine!
Bake Your Heart Out: Foolproof Recipes to Level Up Your Home Baking is truly a masterpiece of a cookbook. Dan offers up a variety of amazing dessert and breakfast recipes featuring cookies, bars, breakfast bakes, pies, tarts, and cakes. Similar to many of my favorite bakers, Dan’s recipes feature classic, nostalgic flavors with a little twist of something extra.
I have learned so much from Dan as he shares the most interesting and innovative baking tips and tricks for creating absolutely delicious and beautiful baked goods. Sometimes one little baking trick can make all the difference!
The debut baking recipe book from Food Network star Dan Langan!
Like many of us, Dan Langan learned young that if you want to make someone smile, all you need to do is give them a cookie. Dan channeled his natural creativity into baking alongside his mother and grandmother, and he soon became obsessed with making and remaking his favorite recipes until they were the tastiest and prettiest versions of themselves. Since then, Dan has become a trusted source for delicious, foolproof bakes and has connected with home bakers via social media, television, and digital videos, and through his website,…
Whenever I’m asked about when I knew I wanted to be a pastry chef/baker, I always answer, “birth!” My maternal grandmother lived with us and she loved to bake; I was playing with dough as soon as I was old enough to stand on a chair next to the kitchen table. After college I faced a crisis: graduate school or culinary school – I chose the latter and I’ve never looked back. Adding teaching and writing to my love of baking led me to travel, taste, research, and learn new techniques and recipes to share. It’s a passion from which I’ll never retire.
Maida’s Book of Great Desserts is the first of many books by her, and the one that influenced me very early in my developing love of baking and desserts.
I was privileged to know Maida for the last 25 years of her life and was able to teach several classes with her. Although all her books were masterpieces, she would most often pick recipes from this book to teach.
Some of my (and Maida’s) favorites include Queen Mother’s Cake (a recipe shared by a musician who claimed to have received it directly from the Queen Mum), East 62nd Street Lemon Cake, Old Fashioned Peanut Butter Cookies (simply delicious), and Black and White Cheesecake.
