Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook presents the doyenne of the Better Way in tip-top form. Or rather, it offers the work of a dedicated team who, under Stewart's stewardship, has devised over 200 baking recipes for both savory and sweet treats, ranging from the traditional likes of buttermilk biscuits, gingersnaps, blueberry pie, bagels, and chocolate angel food cake, to the more novel pleasures of Sausage and Feta Hand Pies, Cherry Fragipane Gallete, Carrot-Ginger Cupcakes, and even the buttery-sugary to-die-for yeasted pastry called kouign amans. Also present and accounted-for are Stewartian showpieces like Mocha-Pistachio Wedding Cake.

The greatest virtue of the book, apart from the clarity of its recipes, lies in its organization: the chapters, which cover all baking stops, begin with relevant tips, followed by notes on equipment and techniques, all photo-illustrated. These set-ups supply context that maximizes the possibility of pleasurable, goof-free baking. Photo-illustrated how-to's in the formulas further the cause. A quibble is the absence in many of the recipe headnotes of descriptive material about the baked good they introduce--it's important to provide info on techniques and ingredients, as the headnotes do, but baking recipes in particular cry out for descriptions of what, for example, sfogliatelle (an Italian pastry), or lime-glazed cookies are. This said, the book is immensely appealing and will excite as well as instruct a wide range of bakers, from the would-be to the accomplished. --Arthur Boehm

From Publishers Weekly

Six years after Stewart's now classic Hors D'Oeuvres Handbook reinvented canapés, here is an end-of-the-meal sequel. General baking tips start things off, most of which are beginner focused ("Read a recipe all the way through"), along with an illustrated guide to baking equipment. Along with expertise, Stewart is also selling the fantasy of wealth; she keeps a vast collection of pots, pans and implements in her own pantry. At times, readers may wish she would offer more suggestions of substitutions for these tools and gadgets (for instance, nearly all the recipes require a stand-up mixer). All the same, this work is, as promised, an essential guide. The recipes include 42 different cookies and 30 cakes, plus pies, tarts, coffee cakes, scones, biscuits, muffins, crackers, bread, fine pastries and more. They range from Classic Apple Pie to twists on standards, like a Tarte Tatin that involves cooking the apples entirely in the oven (instead of on the stovetop) and international goodies like Torta della Nonna. Instructions and sidebars are exhaustive yet accessible. Naturally, the book is exquisitely designed, with beautiful food styling and the spare, closeup photography that's become a hallmark of Stewart publications. Additionally, Stewart includes instructions for decorative crusts, coconut shavings and pastry twists that make her creations look so appealing. (On sale Nov. 1)
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Clarkson Potter (November 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307236722
• ISBN-13: 978-0307236722
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 8 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (101 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #4,688 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

191 of 204 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent manual for amateurs and beginners. Buy It!, November 9, 2005

By	B. Marold "Bruce W. Marold" (Bethlehem, PA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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`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 Irish soda bread), and cakes (seven recipes). Rather than putting all the tutorial material on techniques in the front of the book, the photo tutorials begin each relevant chapter. So, the first chapter includes lessons on cutting butter into biscuit dough, making and cutting scones, cutting biscuits, and preparing muffin tins. Other specifics appear as sidebars to individual recipes. Thus, the correct method for filling popover pans is shown together with the one popover recipe.

The next chapter is on `Cookies'. Just as with the `simple' recipes, the chapter begins with an introduction on good techniques for making cookies, a photo gallery of cookie making tools and tutorials on cookie techniques. Also like the first section, the selection of recipes is very well done. The forty-two recipes certainly don't cover all the ground you will find in a full book on cookies, but a lot of very popular recipes are here. I was particularly interested in the recipe for nut crescents and I was very pleased to find a good representation of exactly now to form the crescents before baking so that the cookies would bake evenly.

My favorite subject, yeast breads, is in the next to last chapter on `Yeasted Baked Goods'. Here again, the choice of recipes is excellent, covering virtually all the major bases with at least one or two examples of each major type of European bread, except for naturally yeasted sourdoughs. All recipes use active dry yeast. A professional baker may prefer fresh yeast and some writers are particularly fond of instant yeast, but I first learned yeast baking with active dry yeast and both of the other types have their disadvantages for the amateur.

One possible dissonance is the fact that pate brisee recipes (pies, tarts, galettes, etc) and other pastry recipes such as puff pastry and pate a choux are in two different chapters, separated by yeast breads. From a practical point of view, for a `handbook' of techniques, I consider this entirely unobjectionable.

One thing I really like about the individual recipes is that in addition to the fact that they seem to leave no important detail out, they also do not introduce a lot of tricks and gimmicks. While I have seen pate brisee recipes with all sorts of different additives to make them work better, Martha Stewart gives us the simplest recipe possible made with flour, salt, butter, and water, period, plus a really nice pictorial tutorial on how to put it all together.

Aside from the generally friendly tone and the homey introduction from Martha, there is none of the chatter in headnotes and sidebars you will find in many books. This is all business.

I strongly recommend this as a first book on baking techniques and reference for lots of common baking recipes.

39 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I'll be covered with flour on the weekends..., November 4, 2005

By	J. Krech (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

After spending two hours curled up by the fire last night, and flipping through each exquisite page of this book, all I can say is that I'm clearing my calendar for the next six months of weekends so I can make each and every thing is this delightful book. Martha's -- and her staff's, for that matter -- attention to detail is unfailing and results in perfect finished products. The pages are sumptuous in the hands, the pictures are enticing and so realistic you can almost smell the baked goods and feel their fresh-from-the-oven warmth. I've tried a few of the recipes and can testify to their elegance: often times simple, always impressive, and absolutely delectable.

36 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Trust me, yes You need this book., November 25, 2005

By	- Kasia S. (New York City) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

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Knowing how great Martha's recipes are I purchased this book only after seeing its cover on amazon.com. It's not about what it was about but because I knew I can depend on her for precise, great and imaginative yet edible ideas.

Upon opening this bible like manual for the precise art of baking, one notices how easy and creative the teaching approach of the book is. It's not a hard to comprehend manual with little words, yet it's not a dummy book that teaches you like a child .

I love how creative her ideas are, the cakes, cookies, tarts, popovers, pizzas, breads and pies.
The pages look like something out of a food version of a Vogue magazine. Each recipe has a gorgeous picture. I cannot stop panting and gushing about how great this book looks. It will defiantly get in you in the kitchen baking every weekend but it will excite you about this art. This book is a great fool proof guide and after baking a pumpkin pie last night from it, and having it turned out million items than my favorite recipe I am a believer. This book covers sweet and savory beaks, but mostly on sweets and breads.

This is a baking manual that is understandable yet gorgeous. Great quality and informative publishing from Stewart. Great job, I AM impressed.