Cooking Light Way to Bake: The Complete Visual Guide to Healthy Baking - delicious recipes, fresh healthy ingredients, smart tools & techniques [Hardcover]

Editors of Cooking Light Magazine (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 4, 2011

Cooking Light Way to Bake is a celebration of the joy of baking and the pleasure healthier baked treats can bring. Light baking has its own set of techniques, and this book is filled with more than 600 full-color photos showing you exactly how to prepare a wide variety of delectable baked goods, so you get perfect results every time you bake.

Baking is both a science and an art and the nuances are numerous, but there are certain principles and techniques that always hold true. With the right proportion of ingredients and a few essential facts and easy-to-learn skills, you can make your light baked goods shine. Inside, you'll find a primer on those guidelines and a glossary of ingredients to help get you started.

Technique is key. In traditional baking, butter and sugar can hide a host of baking mistakes, but healthier baking doesn't afford that luxury. This book offers you the secrets to light baking success. From creating flaky biscuits to making a perfect piecrust, you'll find hundreds of tips and the nutrition information you need to create memorable homemade baked goods.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Featured Recipe: Cast-Iron Apple Cobbler

Yield: 10 servings (serving size: about 3/4 cup). For a small gathering, halve the recipe and bake in a 12-inch cast-iron skillet.

• 6.75 ounces all-purpose flour (about 11/2 cups), divided
• 12 cups thinly sliced peeled Fuji apple (about 4 pounds)
• 2/3 cup sugar, divided
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3/4 teaspoon salt, divided
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 cup chilled butter, cut into small pieces
• 1 cup low-fat buttermilk

1. Preheat oven to 375°.
2. Weigh or lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine 2.25 ounces flour (about 1/2 cup), apple, 1/3 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons butter, vanilla, 1/2 teaspoon salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a large bowl, tossing well. Spoon into a large cast-iron Dutch oven. Add 1/2 cup water.
3. Combine remaining 4.5 ounces flour (about 1 cup), remaining 1/3 cup sugar, remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt, and baking powder in a medium bowl; cut in 1/4 cup butter with a pastry blender or 2 knives until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add buttermilk; stir just until moist. Drop batter by tablespoonfuls over apple mixture. Bake at 375° for 1 hour or until bubbly and browned. Serve warm.

CALORIES 257; FAT 7.4g (sat 4.5g, mono 1.9g, poly 0.4g); PROTEIN 3.2g; CARB 46.1g; FIBER 2.3g; CHOL 19mg; IRON 1.1mg; SODIUM 349mg; CALC 96mg

About the Author

Cooking Light, America's leading epicurean magazine and authority on healthy cooking, is dedicated to helping its more than 11 million readers make healthy taste great.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 424 pages
• Publisher: Oxmoor House (October 4, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0848734750
• ISBN-13: 978-0848734756
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 1.4 x 9.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #123,522 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Yummy recipes, beautiful photos - another winner from Cooking Light's Way To... series September 24, 2011

By LeGrow

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I have been a fan of the Cooking Light magazine for over 10 years. I pre-ordered this book as soon as I heard about it. I have both prior books - Cooking Light Way to Cook Vegetarian & Cooking Light Way to Cook, which I use weekly. I do a lot of cooking/baking for my family and I especially love cookbooks which focus on healthier ingredients and less fat. Here's what I love about it:

1. Photos - This book is filled with photos. I love that - food is so visual. Most recipes have a photo of the finished dish plus special "Kitchen How-To" photos which demonstrate techniques such as the step-by-step process of making monkey bread muffins.

2. Ease of Recipe - The recipes in this book are easy to make. The instructions are clear and the steps are straightforward. Most recipes have only 3-5 steps; these are not fussy or time-consuming baked goods to make. The addition of the step-by-step technique photos for most recipes makes cooking fun and stress-free. No need to guess whether you are shaping and filling your chocolate-hazelnut thumbprint cookies properly, just follow the photos!

3. Nutritional Information - Maybe not important to everyone, but I look for this. Each recipe contains detailed nutritional information such as calories, total fat, saturated fat, monounsaturated fat, polyunsaturated fat, protein, carbohydrates, fiber, cholesterol, iron, sodium and calcium.

4. Food that Tastes Great - Of course the recipes have to work and these deliver. The recipes I've tried produce wonderful, moist baked goods. This book has a great variety to choose from - muffins & quick breads, biscuits & scones, waffles & pancakes, cookies & biscotti, bars & squares, cakes & cupcakes, pies & other pastries, souffles, and yeast breads.

A couple of areas to improve:
- I'd prefer if the binding wasn't hardcover but was spiral bound or a binder (like The America's Test Kitchen Healthy Family Cookbook - another favorite) so it would lie open on my counter.
- I'd also like to see more recipes that include some whole wheat flour.

A heads-up to any avid Cooking Light recipe collectors - if you have been a dedicated collector of recipes from the Cooking Light magazine over the years, as I have, then you may recognize a few favorites.

Bottom-line: I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in healthier lower-fat baked goods. Definitely try the recipes for: Butterscotch Blondies, Sticky Date and Coconut Cake, Anise Tea Crescents, Coconut cupcakes with Lime Buttercream Frosting and Autumn Maple Cutout Cookies!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Get it, you'll like it. October 18, 2011

By Tihaitien

Format:Hardcover

I whole heartedly recommend this book to anyone who loves baking, has thought about baking and wants to learn how to bake. This cookbook not only has pictures for almost every recipe but also includes pictures of some of the steps and techniques used in the recipes. My personal favorite thing about this book is the very first chapter "Way to bake" which it provide information on ingredients, techniques and equipment. Yes, this is not a unique thing for this book, a lot of cookbooks provide much more of this to the point where you're not interested in reading it. But the way the information was presented actually made me stop and read that section instead of flipping by it and going straight to the recipes. The how-to check if your baking soda or baking powder is old was so simple it was genius. I always through them out and bought more.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful & Informative February 21, 2012

By Martha McKinnon, Simple Nourished Living

Format:Hardcover

As soon as I spotted Cooking Light Way to Bake: The Complete Visual Guide to Healthy Baking - delicious recipes, fresh healthy ingredients, smart tools & techniques a few months back I knew I wanted to take it home and add it to my ever-expanding cookbook collection.

As the editors explain, "Cooking Light Way to Bake is a celebration of the joy of baking and the pleasure healthier baked treats can bring. Light baking has its own set of techniques, and this book is filled with more than 600 full-color photos showing you exactly how to prepare a wide variety of delectable baked goods, so you get perfect results every time you bake."

This book is perfect for anyone wanting to learn to bake in a lighter and healthier way, without sacrificing flavor and texture, which is what Cooking Light is all about.

Lighter baking can be tricky so technique is important. The book teaches the secrets to light baking success and includes hundreds of tips, as well as, nutrition information.

Chapters Include, Way to Bake; Muffins & Quick Breads; Biscuits & Scones; Waffles, Pancakes & Crepes; Cookies & Biscotti, Bars & Squares; Cakes & Cupcakes; Pies, Tarts, Cobblers & Pastries; Custard, Puddings & Souffles; and Yeast Breads

Here's what I especially love about Cooking Light Way to Bake:

Chapter 1 - "Way to bake" which provides loads of helpful information on ingredients, techniques and equipment.

Photos - This book is filled with gorgeous photos and lots of step-by-step photo demonstrations of various techniques from baking a batch of biscuits to whipping up a souffle.

Easy Great Tasting Recipes - The recipes in this book are doable even for beginners. The instructions are clear and the steps are straightforward. And more importantly, the results taste great.

Nutritional Information - Now that I'm back with Weight Watchers, this is important for me to be able to calculate the PointsPlus values of what I am baking and eating.

This is a great book for anyone who is interested in making healthier lower-fat baked goods that deliver delicious results.