Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook

I was really excited to get this book and I love it... but whoever owned it before apparently decided to rip out about 20 pages of the recipes they wanted to keep and sell the book in "Good" condition, so, buyer beware, I guess.

`Martha Stewart's Cooking Handbook' is Martha Stewart Omnimedia's first book since Miss Martha has been out of the slammer, and it is her first big book in several years. That, combined with the fact that it's name promises to be a serious manual on baking techniques gives me high expectations for this new title. I am really happy to say the book meets or even exceeds my expectations on almost all points. Like the famous `Boy Scout Handbook' which is exclusively a `how to' book on all the basics, this volume covers virtually all the essential baking techniques, without going into any long explanations on why these are the best techniques. Thus, unlike Sherry Yard's excellent `The Secrets of Baking' or Shirley Corriher's `Cookwise' or Alton Brown's `I'm Just Here for More Food', this book spends no time dwelling on how biscuit baking is very similar to pie crust baking or that cheesecake is not really cake, but a custard pie. Instead, Martha and her very large and expert staff of magazine and book writers, editors, and photographers have assembled and excellent tutorial on most of the basic baking skills. There is another way in which this book is different from most conventional books on baking. It is in the tone I first detected in Martha Stewart's flagship classic, `Entertaining' where she takes the stance of an amateur with good taste and good learning skills, rather than the role of a professional who is showing us amateurs how it's done. This is not to say that we amateurs can't learn a lot from all the baking professionals out there like Peter Reinhart, Rose Levy Beranbaum, Nick Malgieri, and Gayle Ortiz. It's just that Miss Martha sees things from our side of the kitchen counter. This may not explain all the good qualities of this book, but it helps. I think this attitude and the great skill in both describing and picturing techniques means this book is a superb introduction for the beginner, and even for the teen and preteen bakers among us. Lots of books use photographs or drawings to illustrate techniques, but the presence of the pictures is not an automatic path to clarity of presentation. The technique illustrating pictures in this book are simply superb. They seem to leave nothing to the imagination, as when they provide simple pictures illustrating what packed brown sugar looks like, how to measure across the top of a baking pan, and how to prepare the bottom of baking pans with butter, parchment round, followed by more butter. All the photographic experience that has been acquired by doing a monthly magazine has been put to good use. While a purist may object to some elements of this book's organization, it is excellent for a beginner or even an intermediate amateur. Instead of giving us a chapter on quick breads, the book starts with a chapter entitled `Simple Baked Goods' which cover biscuits (five different methods), muffins (four recipes), popovers, scones (four recipes), quick breads (five recipes, including cornbread and

I have tried 2 recipes from this beautiful book and they are both wonderful. I can tell you, the banana bread recipe is worth the price of the book! The color photos are beautiful, and it is always nice to see what the finished product "should" look like. And with such detailed directions, your end product will most assuredly match the pictures. Martha has done it again. A great book for the beginning baker, but definitely a keeper even for the seasoned pro!