There’s Something About Baking

In addition to building up and maintaining my reading pace over the last few years (my post-grad phase of life), I have also discovered a love for baking. With my own kitchen, baking tools, and access to countless TV baking competitions and bakers who upload content and recipes online, I’ve had a lot of fun creating classic desserts and trying new things.

Enter: The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. My mom gave me her copy so I could not only have dozens of sweet recipes on hand, but so I could also learn special tips and crucial baking techniques to apply in every cake, cookie, and confection.

And now I have decided to feature this book and my love for baking here on the blog more regularly. One of my goals for the year is to bake my way through The Cake Bible, so I will also be talking about the recipes, my successes, and failures as I go – dedicating one post to each recipe I try. This series will be a mix of book review, recipe review, and [mostly] a self-review of my baking skills and preferences, as well as [hopefully] a fun conversation starter about desserts and traditions and books outside those commonly discussed in book blogging. It will not be an index of the recipes from The Cake Bible, however. Published recipes in their basic form (ingredient list, instructions) are not protected under copyright law, so I could write out each one in my blog posts. But that just doesn’t feel right to me, and isn’t really important to the purpose of this series, so while I will talk about the ingredients throughout my discussions of the recipes, I will not be divulging Rose Levy Beranbaum’s “secrets” on how to specifically use them.

I know this is not standard book blog content, and I’m not exactly sure how this is going to play out, but with like both reading and baking, half the fun is just diving in to see where you go. I hope the connection to a beloved recipe book will resonate with some of you, and if it doesn’t, I hope you enjoy the small variation in your book blog reading.

The first two posts for this series will be one on the Perfect Pound Cake and one on Mascarpone Frosting and Filling – two pretty basic and simple recipes, but quite satisfying too – so keep an eye out for those over the next couple of weeks.

• Perfect Pound Cake
• Mascarpone Frosting and Filling
• Perfect All-American Chocolate Torte
• White Velvet Butter Cake
• Classic Buttercream
• Golden Almond Cake

If you would like more information on The Cake Bible or Rose Levy Beranbaum, visit her website and blog (which also has a plethora of baking information and additional recipes) here.