Dessert

Genoise Cake with Raspberry and Cream
Genoise Cake with Raspberry and Cream

Genoise Cake with Raspberry and Cream from Illustrated Step-by-Step Baking by Caroline Bretherton.

What’s the difference between beating and folding? What should “soft peaks” look like? How do you line a pastry crust? When it comes to baking, knowing what an instruction means can be the difference between a showstopper and a soggy bottom. That’s where Illustrated Step-by-Step Baking comes in.

Each of the 80 classic recipes in this essential collection is fully illustrated, with photographs of every stage of the baking process. See what other baking books only tell you: how to knead the dough, rub together butter and flour, and create a pastry lattice to top a pie or tart. Then try your hand at more than 250 variations on those classics, or use them as inspiration to build on what you’ve learned and experiment with your own baking creations.

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White Chocolate and Raspberry Macarons
White Chocolate and Raspberry Macarons

White Chocolate and Raspberry Macarons, Macarons: 65 recipes for chic and delicious treats by Annie Rigg and Loretta Liu. Photographs © Ryland, Peters & Small.

Macarons: 65 recipes for chic and delicious treats by Annie Rigg and Loretta LiuStylish, picture-perfect and delicious, macarons are the ultimate in pretty sweet treats.

Adaptable to any colour scheme or flavouring, these delicate little fancies make the perfect gift or centrepiece for a smart afternoon tea. This gorgeous book gives you step-by-step instructions on how to master the basic macaron recipe so that you always get a crisp exterior, chewy cookie, and flavoursome filling.

Flavours to enjoy include salted caramel, pistachio, lemon, cappuccino, cherry and chocolate, malted milk chocolate, and raspberry and passion fruit.

Once mastered, you can try your hand at the beautifully decorated macarons, from pandas to flowers, caterpillars to Chinese lanterns, bumblebees to tennis balls, these stunning and playful designs will delight and thrill at any occasion.

Macarons: 65 recipes for chic and delicious treats is available at Amazon.com and Indigo.ca. (more…)

Fried Ravioli with Cheese and Honey
Fried Ravioli with Cheese and Honey

Fried Ravioli with Cheese and Honey from Bitter Honey: Recipes and Stories from Sardinia by Letitia Clark. Photography by Matt Russell.

Bitter Honey In Bitter Honey, seasoned chef Letitia Clark invites us into her home on one of the most beautiful islands in the Mediterranean Sea—Sardinia. The recipes in this book do not take long to make, but you can taste the ethos behind every one of them—one which invites you to slow down, and nourish yourself with fresh food, friends and family. 

The importance of eating well is even more pronounced here on this forgotten island. Try your hand at Roasted eggplants with honey, mint, garlic and burrata, or a fresh, zesty salad of Celery, orange, anchovy and hazelnut, followed by Malloreddus (the shell-shaped pasta from the region) with crab, saffron and tomato.

Each recipe and the story behind it will transport you to the glittering, turquoise waters and laid-back lifestyle of this Italian paradise. With beautiful design, photography, full-colour illustrations and joyful anecdotes throughout, Bitter Honey is a vacation, a cookbook and a window onto a covetable lifestyle in the sun—all rolled into one. 

Bitter Honey: Recipes and Stories from Sardinia is available at Amazon.com and Indigo.ca. (more…)

Strawberry Pavlova

Strawberry Pavlova

Strawberry Pavlova,(c)2020 by Laurie Pfalzer. Excerpted from Simple Fruit: Seasonal Recipes for Baking, Poaching, Sautéing, and Roasting by permission of Sasquatch Books.

Simple Fruit

Some fruits are at their best when eaten fresh, while others reveal their truest and most delicious flavour when cooked. Understanding how to enjoy fruit at its peak of flavour—whether it’s lightly sautéed, poached, baked, braised, or roasted—is the key, and this cookbook for home cooks shows you how.

Simple Fruit inspires home cooks to explore and enhance the flavours of fruit throughout the year. Each recipe applies a cooking technique that wakes the senses with the distinct flavour characteristics of the fruit. Simple Fruit is a fresh way to approach fruit.

The 50 recipes in this book are organized seasonally and by type of fruit, with a focus on bringing out the best flavour in the fruit. Whether it’s Vanilla-Roasted Rhubarb, Strawberry Pavlova, Cherry Hand Pies, or Grilled Apricots with Brown Butter and Maple-Tamari Glaze, Simple Fruit encourages and inspires readers to explore the unique flavours of cooked fruits, and gives them options to create a variety of seasonal desserts.

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Lemon Curd Cream Crepe Cake

Lemon Curd Cream Crepe Cake

Lemon Curd Cream Crepe Cake c/o of Beatrix Bakes by Natalie Paull. Photography by Emily Weaving.

Beatrix BakesFor Natalie Paull, baking is a gift. It’s also a powerful elixir of pleasure, connection, generosity and joy. In Beatrix Bakes, Natalie indulges in baking’s sweetest moments with more than seventy recipes inspiring bakers of all kinds to mix and match to make recipes their own—whether it’s a lemon curd cream crepe cake or pecan maple cinnamon scrolls.

Sparkling with Natalie’s distinct voice, and packaged with full-colour photography, illustrations and rock-solid tips for a perfect bake, Beatrix Bakes also includes ‘Adaptrix’ suggestions (offering ways readers might do things differently, including short cuts) and is peppered with infographics to help them follow their baking heart. Try The Cheesecake (That You Will Love The Most) with a crumb base, or a bought biscuit base, or no base, or a sponge base, or even a failed cookie base! And from there, pick a topping from sour cream to crumb, to fruity bits.

The recipes are divided across eight chapters: Doughs, Pastries & Crusts; Tarts, Pies, a Crostata & a Galette; The Cake List; One in the Hand; Yeasted Bakes; Fruit-full; Creams, Custards, Fillings, Glazes and Buttercreams; and Finishing Touches.

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Chocolate Mocha Swiss Rolls

Chocolate Mocha Swiss Rolls

Chocolate Mocha Swiss Rolls courtesy of Baking with Bruno by Chef Bruno Feldeisen. Photography by Henry M. Wu.

Baking with Bruno by Chef Bruno FeldeisenWhen Bruno Feldeisen left his native France he embarked on a journey to discover new culinary horizons, open spaces and exciting new flavours. This journey landed him in New York where his culinary love affair with North America began. In this new world, he cooked alongside chefs from every walk of life, in cities as vibrant as his curiosity. He discovered that food in North America was exciting, culturally rich and that the desserts were absolutely delicious. He also learned that this too was a land of baking, how centuries of immigrants from Holland, Germany, Italy and other distant places made this a special place of endless possibilities.

This exciting new book is Bruno’s ode to this journey-where a French baker from a world of very defined culinary rules explores a new land where the food possibilities, techniques and tastes are boundless.

Come share Chef Bruno’s journey where the sweet smells of baking create long-lasting memories!

Baking with Bruno: A French Baker’s North American Love Story is available at Amazon.com and Indigo.ca. (more…)

No-Bake Brownies

No-Bake Brownies

No-Bake Brownies, Quicker Thank Quick by Pamela Salzman, photography by Amy Neunsinger.

Quick Than Quick

Pamela Salzman, beloved Los Angeles-based cooking instructor and author of Kitchen Matters, is back with a collection of quick, delicious meals that don’t compromise on flavour or nutrition. In Quicker Than Quick, Pamela shares an arsenal of cooking class-tested, family-approved, easy, healthful recipes that will have you covered through breakfast, lunch, and dinner. These inventive sheet pan dinners, stovetop skillet meals, Instant Pot recipes, and quick versions of time-consuming comfort foods require minimal hands-on time and don’t use exotic, hard-to-find ingredients.

Equally useful are the techniques and tricks that teach you great ways to hack your meals, without sacrificing quality. With recipes customizable for a range of diets (vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, dairy-free, grain-free, Paleo, and nut-free), as well as suggestions for how to repurpose almost every recipe in the book and general ideas for using up leftovers, Quicker Than Quick will make your cooking like a snap — and your local fast food delivery obsolete.

Pamela Salzman’s Quicker Than Quick: 140 Crave-Worthy Recipes for Healthy Comfort Foods in 30 Minutes or Less is available at Amazon.com and Indigo.ca. (more…)

Chilled Marbled Raspberry Cheesecake

Chilled Marbled Raspberry Cheesecake

Chilled Marbled Raspberry Cheesecake recipe excerpted from Entertaining with Mary Berry. Photography by Georgia Glynn Smith.

Entertaining with Mary BerryIn this extra-special updated edition of Mary Berry’s popular entertaining cookbook, Mary makes cooking for gatherings of family and friends easy, with over 160 recipes that work well for both small and large parties.

Lavish new photography and bonus festive recipes make this edition a precious self-purchase or an ideal gift for any Mary fan. You’ll discover how Mary cooks for her family and friends during the Christmas party season, and for other occasions and celebrations throughout the year. Timeless guidance and expert tips will help you cater successfully on a small scale for dinners and lunches around a table, or on a larger scale for drinks parties, buffets and teatime.

Adapting quantities is made easy. Recipes provide two sets of ingredients for serving either 6 or 12 guests, plus there is new advice on how to scale up recipes for any number.

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Beeswax, Peaches and Elderflower

Beeswax, Peaches and Elderflower

Beeswax, Peaches and Elderflower, Sun and Rain by Ana Roš. Photography by Suzan Gabrijan.

Ana Roš, considered one of the world’s best chefs, is the chef and owner of Hiša Franko in the Slovenian countryside.

Hiša Franko, one of the world’s most celebrated restaurants, is situated in Slovenia’s lush and remote Soca Valley, resting between the foothills of the mountains and a stunning turquoise river. One of the most influential and inspiring talents, Roš took the helm at the restaurant in 2002, from her in-laws, without any culinary training. She now runs the restaurant with her husband, Valter, who is the in-house sommelier and cheese-monger.

Roš’s rebellious spirit and idiosyncratic style of cooking has contributed to putting her, the restaurant, and Slovenia on the map. In 2016 she appeared in an episode of the Netflix series Chef’s Table, in 2017 she was named the World’s Best Female Chef, and Hiša Franko is currently ranked #38 on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. Nearly all the restaurant diners travel from abroad to taste Roš’s cooking and experience the beautiful Slovenian landscape.

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St. Clement’s Cake

St. Clement's Cake

St. Clement’s Cake, excerpted from Artisan Home Baking by Julian Day, with recipes from Meg Rivers. Photography by Steve Painter

Artisan Home Baking by Julian Day, with recipes from Meg Rivers.A light Victoria Sponge, gooey Chocolate Fudge Brownies, and a sweet Treacle Tart are all delicious treats that do so much more than satisfy your appetite. They bring together loved ones, help celebrate occasions, and, most of all, evoke pleasant memories of when these sumptuous treats first passed your lips. In this delightful collection of bakes, you’ll find classic recipes that are at the heart of home baking; this is the essence of the Meg Rivers bakery, to create traditional cakes, cookies, tarts, and puddings to cherish and enjoy.

Nestled in the English countryside, the bakery started its life when Meg wanted to make cakes for her family that not only tasted good but were also fresh and wholesome. Soon—after her popularity grew at home and abroad—the bakery was born and, now, its mail-order treats travel all around the world for everyone to savour.

If you’ve been searching for the comforting, traditional bakes that are guaranteed to put a smile on your face, look no further than these marvellous recipes.

Artisan Home Baking: Wholesome and delicious recipes for cakes and other bakes is available at Amazon.com an Indigo.ca. (more…)