The Williams-Sonoma Baking Book: Essential Recipes for Today's Home Baker [Hardcover]

Williams-Sonoma (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 27, 2010 | Series: Williams-Sonoma

Nothing evokes the comforts of home better than freshly baked treats straight from the oven. But too many home cooks believe they don't have the time to bake except for the occasional special dessert. If you are one of them, this comprehensive baking collection, with nearly 400 recipes for everything from homespun favorites and bake-shop sweets to popular restaurant-style desserts, is guaranteed to change your mind. In this inspired book, you will find recipes that both fit into your busy schedule and suit nearly every occasion, from quick dessert for weeknight suppers to fancy cakes for holiday tables.

Whether you are dreaming of buttery shortbread for an afternoon snack, a luscious berry pie for a midsummer get-together, a buche de Noel for a Christmas Day buffet, or a batch of rolls for Sunday supper, you will discover how to make it in these pages. The recipes are organized into eight comprehensive chapters: Cookies and Bars; Muffins and Quick Breads; Coffee Cakes, Scones, and Biscuits; Cakes and Tortes; Pies and Tarts; Yeasted Breads; Fruit Desserts; and Custards and Egg Dishes. Each chapter provides an array of flavor options to match the seasons and to accommodate a variety of tastes. Every recipe includes a photograph of the finished dish, so you can see how it will look, as well as photographs illustrating key baking task, ingredients, and/or equipment.

Classics enjoyed by adults and kids alike are here, such as lemon bars, chocolate-studded cookies, blueberry muffins with brown-sugar topping, buttermilk biscuits, birthday cake with fudge frosting, pumpkin pie, and country-style cinnamon rolls. Detailed directions for baking chocolate cupcakes, bagels, and madeleines make these typical bakery specialties easy to prepare at home. A large selection of recipes for special occasions, such as almond-flecked chocolate cake with caramel sauce, pear torte with fresh ginger, and cherry cheesecake with a biscotti crust, provides plenty of ideas for holiday and dinner-party tables. Rounding out the book are dozens of recipes for savory baked items, from Roquefort-laced popovers and goat cheese muffins to olive bread and mushroom quiche.

An extensive reference section at the end of the book includes basic recipes, such as pie and tart doughs, dessert sauces and glazes, and cake frostings and fillings. Also included is a tips-and-techniques primer, with photographed step-by-step instructions on everything from rolling out pie dough, making decorative crusts, and frosting a cake to kneading bread dough in a stand mixer. Cooking and ingredient charts and a comprehensive glossary complete the section.

With The Williams-Sonoma Baking Book on your kitchen shelf, you will find yourself baking more often, with results that are always both delicious and rewarding.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

The first Williams-Sonoma store opened in 1956. Since then, the brand has expanded to hundreds of products from around the world, more than 250 stores nationwide, a direct-mail business that distributes millions of catalogs a year, and a highly successful e-commerce site.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Oxmoor House (April 27, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1603201076
• ISBN-13: 978-1603201070
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 1.5 x 10.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #37,688 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #41 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Baking > Bread

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Book But Don't Buy if You Already Own the Other "Williams-Sonoma Collection:" Books February 12, 2011

By cblossoms

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I was really excited to get this book because I love the Williams-Sonoma cookbooks. Unfortunately, if you have already purchased some of the other cookbooks from the "Collection" series, you'll end up getting the same recipes again. I know for certain that the The Williams-Sonoma Collection: Cookies and The Williams-Sonoma Collection: Dessert are repeated in this book and from the looks of it, it seems that the The Williams-Sonoma Collection: Muffins, fruit dessert, and possibly the pie and tart one are in here, too. I'm not certain because I don't own those three.

Anyways, if you do not own any of those cookbooks already, you should definitely invest the $25 in this collection, it's great!

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best cookbooks I have July 18, 2010

By K. Klett

Format:Hardcover

I stumbled accross this cookbook at Borders this weekend and upon flipping through it decided I needed to have it. I already had the William Sonoma Dessert book, but this has SO MANY more recipes. And the beautiful thing about it is that I want to make most of them!!! I can't tell you how many cookbooks I have that waste space on my shelf for a recipe or 2. I've already made 3 recipes out of this in 3 days. I've never been disappointed in any of their recipes. I love that many of the ingredients are listed in both volume (cups) and weight (oz) measurements and there is a ton of reference material included as well. Definately worth the investment for a home baker and a beautiful book with great pictures too!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great recipes! July 21, 2010

By frank yapelli

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I first picked up this book at the local library. Wow... beautiful color pictures accompanied many of the recipes, plus a sprinkling of helpful cooking tips throughout the book. The recipes are very well-explained and don't require you be a trained chef with culinary skills. I tried several of the recipes and loved them so I went ahead and ordered the book for myself plus I bought an extra copy for my grown daughter.

from (Frank's wife) Karen

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent recipes, poor measurement conversions July 17, 2011

By meisum

Format:Hardcover

I've been baking out of this book for several months now and have LOVED nearly every recipe. Several of their recipes - the angel food cake, blueberry muffins, wheat bread, blackberry cobbler, and pineapple upside-down cake, to name a few - have replaced my previous go-to recipes. I've also tried some of the less common recipes (Mexican chocolate cake with ancho whipped cream, cranberry and pear crumble, strawberries and cream cake) to great success. Nearly everything tastes stellar!

But the main drawback is the measurement conversions. I prefer to use weight measurements as they're more accurate, but this book's volume-weight conversions are completely off. A cup of sugar (scooped and leveled) weighs far below the printed weight equivalent. And for that matter, their metric conversions are even more off. My scale is properly calibrated (I just tested it), so it's not a problem with the equipment. If I were to make a cake using only their weight measurements (which I have), it would come out completely dense (which it did). The same cake using volume measurements came out perfectly light and tender. So the moral of the story is to only use the printed volume measurements and keep the scale for a more precise cook book. Otherwise, this is a great book!

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fail safe baking book! July 7, 2010

By Stephanie Romano

Format:Hardcover

I love to bake. In fact I bake nearly every day. I absolutely hate wasting time and money on books or online recipes that miss the mark. I first started out with a W-S baking book that is a little smaller than this book. It too is a great buy. This book has some of the recipes that appear in that book, plus hundreds more.

I bought this book for myself as a birthday gift this year and started using it immediately when we had a house full of guests for Memorial Day weekend. So far all of the muffins I have made from this book are the best I've ever tasted! Then the other day I did the brownie recipe...not anything like your typical chewy box brownie but oh SO much more! I find myself cutting an inch by inch square for a taste because I can't stop thinking about how good they are and I end up eating a full size piece with a cup of coffee. They are that good! Or my will-power is that bad?! Either way, the best I've ever had! Then last night I made the Beer Batter Bread, and let me just say I have never had anything like it before in my life...soooo simple to throw together and just the perfect slice of comfort!

Even if you are not a serious baker, this book is worth it's weight in gold! You can pick from involved recipes if you're looking for a challenge or you can go for the easy, quick recipes. The photos are amazing and you can get lost drooling over the choices for a good hour or two. This will most definitely be an heirloom in our family!

Also, if you like to play at recipes and try new things out with an old favorite recipe, this book has a lot, I do mean a lot, of extra room on it's pages to write yourself little notes about variations you've tried and how it went, what you would do differently.... This is a big thing for me, since I often play around and then have something phenomenal happen and later can't remember what I did to make a good recipe a million times better. Also, since this is a hardback it has a jacket which for me is very helpful in marking my place when I'm in the midst of canisters of ingredients and have to close the book for counter space, but need to refer to it later. Read more ›

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Best baking book I have found May 4, 2010

By ALR

Format:Hardcover

I haven't been lucky in finding a good book that was exclusively baking until I bought this book. It provides great recipes that you can use everyday, including recipes for breads, muffins, etc. Other cookbooks like Southern Living and Paula Deen provide good recipes but not many of them are baking. This book was the exact one that I was looking for to provide me with alterative sweets and treats that don't come from a box mix. It's a great baking reference book and I see it being a part of my go-to collection for many years to come.