Product Description

More than ten years ago, cookbook author and teacher Marion Cunningham and professional baker Amy Pressman met occasionally to talk about the wonders and mysteries of baking. They chatted, exchanged ideas, offered suggestions, and ended up solving some of their difficult baking problems. Slowly a concept took shape. Suppose groups of like-minded bakers were to meet to exchange ideas and solve baking problems?

At the first meeting of The Baker's Dozen, forty people showed up with forty lemon meringue pies. The topic of the meeting was weeping and shrinking meringues and how to prevent them from happening. (The solution: Heat the egg whites and sugar while beating to avoid weeping; use more egg whites to solve the problem of shrinking.)

The word spread quickly, and The Baker's Dozen has grown to more than ten times the original number -- there are now more than four hundred members in the Bay Area. The groups continue to have two simple goals: Share what you know about baking and learn from one another.

Now you can share the collective experiences and favorite recipes of The Baker's Dozen in The Baker's Dozen Cookbook, with recipes selected and tested by some of the most respected and most accomplished bakers in the business.Lindsey Shere, co-founder and pastry chef of Chez Panisse, shares the secrets of tarts. Authors Carol Field and Fran Gage and baker Peter Reinhart offer their collective wisdom on yeast breads and flatbreads. John Phillip Carroll teaches about easy quick breads, coffee cakes, and muffins. Renowned author and baker Flo Braker and her team share their years of cake-baking experience. Carolyn Weil and her group offer the ultimate advice and techniques for pies and piecrusts. Robert Morocco and Julia Cookenboo divulge their trade secrets of making foolproof cookies equal to those of any quality bakeshop.

The Baker's Dozen Cookbook goes far beyond recipes. You'll benefit from what these bakers learned on their field trips. You'll learn tricks such as using dental floss to cut neat slices of creamy cheesecake. You'll learn the differences between a pastry bag and a parchment cone; between a pÂte brisÉe, a "broken dough," and a pÂte sablÉe, a "sandy dough"; between butter and shortening in determining the flakiness of a crust; and so much more.

So whether you simply want to become a better baker yourself or to form a Baker's Dozen group with others, all you need is The Baker's Dozen Cookbook. It puts four hundred of America's best bakers and everything they know right by your side.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #286639 in Books
• Published on: 2001-11-01
• Released on: 2001-11-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 368 pages

Amazon.com Review
Founded by cookbook author Marion Cunningham and professional baker Amy Pressman, the Baker's Dozen, a Bay Area group, helps its members bake better, sharing knowledge and solving members' baking problems. Edited by Rick Rodgers, The Baker's Dozen Cookbook, the group's first work, includes 135 enticing recipes, from Sour Cream Pound Cake and Almond and Chocolate Sandwich Cookies to breads and other nonsweet baked goods. The book's great appeal, however, lies in its lucid instructive material. New and veteran bakers alike will find this collection a true learning tool, which provides basic tutorials and more-advanced explorations into the art of baking.

The recipes come with a pedigree. Readers can thus enjoy baking-book expert Flo Braker's Triple Chocolate Cake and Peanut Butter and Strawberry Jam Cake, "Italian baker" Carol Field's Italian Whole Wheat Bread, and Chez Panisse pastry chef Lindsey Shere's Warm Pear Tart and Simple Nectarine Gallete. Other outstanding recipes include Julia Cookenboo's Pistachio-Golden Raisin Biscotti, Fran Gage's Spicy Cornmeal Crackers, and Rochelle Huppin-Fleck's Blood Orange Chiffon Pie with Chocolate Crumb Crust. In addition to insightful notes that accompany every recipe, the book offers definitive ingredient and equipment glossaries (chocolate is particularly well treated here), a detailed cake-basics section (batter-mixing for all cake types as well as other techniques are explored in depth), and color photos that depict the mouthwatering sweets in all their glory. The group has done its work well--this is one of the best baking books to appear in recent years. --Arthur Boehm

From Publishers Weekly
Best known for The Fanny Farmer Cookbook, Marion Cunningham is as American as, oh, say, the Peanut Butter and Strawberry Jam Layer Cake in her group's latest compilation, which she introduces. Cunningham belongs to a group of bakers, calling itself the Baker's Dozen, devoted to sharing tips, talking shop and taking mouth-watering field trips to places such as the Guittard chocolate factory. Cunningham and 12 other members of the group impart just the sort of insider information to make readers feel part of an exclusive club. All the classics are covered here: cakes, custards, pies (with an excellent, comprehensive introduction to pie crusts), distinctive regional baked-fruit recipes and a chapter on cookies, with a recipe contending for "The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies." The book offers clear guidance to ensure consistently impressive results in the home kitchen, particularly in the "Cakes for Family and Friends" chapter. Building on the classics, there are several trend-worthy variations: try the Five-Spice Angel Food Cake for a novelty dessert, the Blood Orange Chiffon Pie with Chocolate Crust for a dramatic update of the venerable chiffon pie or the Sherried Zucchini-Currant Tea Loaves for a more sophisticated use of surplus summer zucchini. Chapters on bread baking (including quick breads) clearly explain potential pitfalls and how to sidestep them and turn what could be an intimidating process into a stress-free experience for first-time bread bakers. The professional baking tips, detailed recipes and extensive glossaries will have readers well on their way to mastering techniques for perfect pastry. (Nov.)Forecast: The book's top names will draw attention from home bakers, many of whom have already formed informal bakers' groups of their own. Simple word of mouth will help this book's sales.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
The Baker's Dozen is an organization of West Coast bakers that started with a gathering of 40 people in 1989 and has grown to include more than 300 members. The group shares information, offers programs, and holds bake-offs: their angel food bake-off has become a familiar story in professional circles because 60 entrants followed the same recipe, yet no two cakes turned out the same. Their cookbook is intended to show home bakers how to avoid pitfalls and achieve great results at every turn. The detailed introduction covers ingredients and techniques, and "Testing and Tasting" boxes throughout provide more information; recipe chapters range from "The Basics of Cake" to "A Harvest of Fruit Desserts" to "Yeast Breads and Flatbreads." Although many of the classics are included, this is not a comprehensive collection and will not replace general titles such as Nick Malgieri's How To Bake (HarperCollins, 1995) or more specific baking books such as Carole Walters's Great Pies & Tarts (LJ 2/15/98). But with delicious recipes and dozens of useful tips from a roster of talented bakers that includes Flo Braker, Marion Cunningham, and Alice Medrich, it is recommended for most collections.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Customer Reviews

A combined cookbook and textbook for bakers
Over ten years ago, a group of bakers in California gathered to share information and recipes. The group includes an excellent selection of cooks including Flo Baker, Marion Cunningham, Alice Medrich, and Carolyn Beth Weil but is now part of a group that's 400+ members.

Besides including a fine selection of recipes, there are also sections which discuss ingredients in detail and specific techniques. For instance, the Fresh Ginger-Spice Cookies includes a reference that will tell you how professional chefs form the dough logs that don't contain air bubbles. Following the recipe for Lemon Meringue Pie there are two pages of information about meringue.

I've made several of the recipes and they've all been excellent.

Some cookbooks includes lots or pretty pictures and not a lot of content. This is not one of them. While there are some lovely pictures in this book (like the Chocolate Raspberry Cake), some of the pictures are to show you things that would be hard to explain in text (the different stages of beating egg whites). If the choice was between more pictures or more recipes/information, then I believe they made the right choice.

This would be an excellent book for anyone who's really serious about baking -- either a new baker just starting or an experienced baker who wants to expand their knowledge.

wonderful recipes, well-written and helpful advice
I am so pleased with this book. Even if you never baked a thing from the book, you would learn a lot about the hows and whys of baking just by reading it.

The first recipe I tried, around Christmas, was for Lemon Stars, a beautiful-looking cookie with a wonderful lemon flavor. The Chocolate-Hazelnut Meringue Cookies were outstanding--my son and I wolfed them down shamelessly. Lemon-Poppy Seed Shortbread Cookies were excellent, and we are enjoying the Raisin-Bran Muffins. I have also made the Buttermilk Currant Scones (flawless) and the White Sandwich Bread (texture was perfect).

In short, this is an outstanding collection packed with excellent advice.

The Baker's Bible
Many cookbooks about baking have words like "bible" or "complete" in them. Yet, none really deserve the term. They are never complete nor correct enough to warrant the title. This book, however, has earned the rights to these words. It originally started out as a club for professional bakers to solve their common baking problems that metastasized into this baking cookbook. It features many highly respected names such as Flo Braker, John Phillip Carroll, Marion Cunningham, Carol Field, Fran Gage, and Alice Medrich. The whole thing is edited by Rick Rodgers.

I have often heard people, including many respected food writers, lament that there ought to be a comprehensive book about baking that covers all of the important aspects and types of recipes and techniques. Well, here it is. It delves into such arcana as: the differences between genoise, sponge cake, chiffon cake, and angel food cake; the proper way to measure flour (in fact, different chapters use different methods, so read the recipes carefully and follow them to the letter; similar comments apply to which rolling pin or what kind of flour to use); and 4 different recipes for pie dough using either lard, cream cheese, shortening, or butter. The same applies to the chapter on tarts. It starts out with 5 recipes for crusts (pate brisee, pate sablee, pate sucree, tartlet dough, and quick puff pastry), and the subsequent recipes for tarts start with one of one of the crusts. The chapter on yeast breads is especially noteworthy.

Each chapter is written by a different person, and functions as a self contained primer on a particular subject. Each subject is treated systematically and thoroughly. In fact, each chapter could be published on its own as reference work on its subject. One chapter often contains more information than a standard cookbook on baking. The chapters are: ingredients, tools, basic cakes, fancy cakes, pies, tarts, fruit desserts, cookies, muffins and quick breads, yeast breads, custards, and frostings.

There are 2 important features in this book that are absent from most others about baking. First, all of the recipes are the result of extensive testing by the bakers (of which, incidentally, there are many more than just a baker's dozen or 13), and not just a "traditional" one someone habitually uses. Second, all of the recipes are solid, old-fashioned favorites (like: brownies, biscuits, doughnuts, banana bread, apple pandowdy, pecan pie, cornbread) that have been staples of the family table for decades; there are no trendy recipes here for weird baked goods that you will never make. On the down side, there are a couple of editing mistakes: p. 221 and 224 both refer to "page 000".

If you can bake cakes from boxed mixes and make cookies from the recipe on the back of the package of chocolate chips, then you are ready for this book. Even experienced bakers will learn much from the collective intelligence in this book. If there is only one cookbook about baking on your shelf, then this is the one to have.