I just ordered Fairy Tale Cupcakes cookbook by cozy-mystery author Jenn McKinlay. Not that I need yet another baking cookbook. But the cupcakes/frostings recipes at the end of each of her bakery books are unusual and it will be fun to have them all in one place.
Purchased this on digital and know this will keep my entire family busy!
I’ve let Santa know I’m not ready for a pasta maker this year (but most likely will be by next year). Instead, I’ve got my eye on several baking books (last year’s Nordic Baking Book was a hit!). Any feedback?
Anna Olson - Baking Wisdom
Maida Heatter - Happiness is Baking
Nichole Accettola - Scandinavian from Scratch
Christopher Kimball - Milk Street Bakes
King Arthur Baking - Big Book of Bread
Beatrice Ojakangas - The Great Scandinavian Baking Book
Happiness Is Baking is kind of a posthumous best of, composed of what are said to be Heatter’s favorite of her recipes. She’s a solid recipe writer, and this is kind of a combination of some of her signatures and her recipes for basics, the latter stuff you probably have recipes for in many sources. (Here’s the EYB index.) I’ve made and thoroughly enjoyed the Coffee Buttercrunch Pie (rich!), Lemon Bread Pudding (though I didn’t use her lemon curd recipe, and halved the sugar in the custard), and many moons ago, the chocolate gingerbread. Note that the recipe writing is as it is originally, so can reflect those times, and there are no weights for dry ingredients. If you don’t have anything by her, it’s a good intro.
I was gifted this book and love the small stories told with each recipe, which makes for interesting reading as well as good baking. It has a wide variety of recipes including some main-dish recipes in the final chapter. Chapter headings are Breads for Meals, Breads for Coffeetime, Cookies and Little Cakes, Cakes and Tortes, Pastries and Pies, Savory Pies and Filled Breads. My best estimate is it has 140 recipes in 310 pages, with good how-to drawn illustrations for braiding or shaping specialty bakes. The Index of recipes seems excellent. The only downside might be some overlap with recipes from your Nordic Baking Book.
I have Baking Wisdom. Milk Street Bakes, Scandinavian from Scratch
Baking Wisdom is a very good basic baking book with lots of advice and difficulty rating. It has weights. I’ve been pleased with the recipes I’ve baked, and the basic pie recipe is excellent.
Milk Street Bakes. I really like this book. The layout is excellent. Nice collection of bread recipes. Some recipes are from different countries and bakeries plus their own. Has weights.
Scandanavian from Scratch. I only have another Nordic baking book Fika so there are not to many repeats for me. Love the book.
One other book that i just love is The Sweet Polish Kitchen because its so much like my mothers baking. My mom never owned a cookbook or any recipes. They were all in her head and measuring was done by her favourie cup, spoon, etc. So i so appreciate this book. Only problem is lots of recipes are with self rising flour and i finall broke down and bought some.
It all depends were your interests are.
Ive made a few recipes from this book and they are all very good. The mushroom ramen is so good. Cant wait to make it again.
Great to hear! I put the cookbook on my holiday list after browsing through it at the bookstore.
Blueberry babka! Just the idea of that might be enough to keep me up at night. 
Maybe something from this throwback list
I enjoyed looking at that list this morning. Several of the books I have (or have had), but I believe all, without exception, I was familiar with. It was a good read!
SInce I recently moved and had to face my ridiculous number of cookbooks, I am only asking for one this Christmas ( showing remarkable restraint… for me). Just this one https://www.amazon.ca/100-Afternoon-Sweets-Snacking-Brownies/dp/179721618X
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I have the book and baked 2 things from it. We really liked the espresso brownies. I do use less sugar with her recipes. Will bake more from this book after Christmas
I see a new cookbook called Sift with the pink cover and sifted flour/icing sugar—is that the one you mean? The Milk Street book is called Bakes and has an apple cake on the cover, at least my edition does. I can’t say I’ve found that much in it either, but succumbed to a Black Friday sale.
Oops! Got confused. I’m on the waitlist for Sift, just skimmed through Bakes. Beautiful cover of apple cake.
I’m so happy I can look at cookbooks as ebook loans. I’m grateful the book didn’t entice me. Do you think you’ll cook something from it?
I’m sure I’ll make some things from it, but I haven’t even looked past the table of contents yet. Was an impulse purchase as I was so far down the line at the library. Wouldn’t you know that yesterday I saw it on the express shelf!
Come join us to nominate books for next quarter’s COTM:
I own it and it took me a while to warm up to it, but now I love it. When I first looked at it, I didn’t see anything that wowed me. I recently pulled it down from the shelf and spent some time with it, and when I did, I immediately bought a copy for a friend.
This holiday season I have been making her hazelnut chocolate chip shortbread and giving it as holiday gifts.
