Recently a friend asked me what my favorite baking book was. I have a lot of favorites - I adore anything by Nick Malgieri, especially How to Bake (which you can find used on Amazon for $3.00!). I am fond of looking at Pierre Herme's cookbooks ('cookbooks' seem innacurate to describe his work, but who am I to quibble?). I have a couple dozen other books which I love with varying amounts of passion. I have a Japanese baking book that thrills me with its mix of East and West desserts but devils me with its difficult-to-execute-in-the-US metric recipes, even though I have the right measuring cups. I love highbrow and lowbrow baking books. I love pictures and I love recipes, but all I need is a good recipe to make a cookbook unforgettable and irreplacable.
The Village Baker's Wife, written by Louisa Beers and Gayle and Joe Ortiz, proprietors of Gayle's Bakery in Aptos, CA, is probably my favorite baking book, bar none. Written in 1997 and now in print only in paperback, this book has few pictures but has some of the best - and most fail-proof and easy to follow - recipes for American dessert and sweet snack favorites. The chocolate chip cookie recipe is one of the best I've ever tried - I even scaled it for use in the kitchen when I worked at the Four Seasons in Atlanta. Lemon bars are also better than just about any other recipe I have seen published. The carrot cake is a standout, and I use their recipe for cream cheese icing whenever I get a request for cream cheese icing.
The section on danish and breakfast pastry is equally impressive, with detailed but clear instructions on laminating dough, including croissant dough and danish dough. There are unnecessary but informative profiles of their famous baking friends scattered throughout the book, along with recipes they have inspired.
You definitely do not need to have visited Gayle's Bakery to appreciate the cookbook, which is, as far as I am concerned, a masterpiece in a very modest form.
The hardcover is out of print and you'll pay a small fortune for it. The softcover is a better value - and if you are a slob like me, it may be the better option. While I like cookbooks, I buy them to use them, not to have them gather dust on the shelf.
I love Gayle's bakery. I am looking for a recipe for her butterstar cookies. Can you please tell me if this recipe is in the book? Thank you!
Posted by: Nalu | October 12, 2008 at 11:17 PM