The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion: The All-Purpose Baking Cookbook (Hardcover)

~ King Arthur Flour (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The King Arthur company has produced flour and other baking ingredients of high reputation for over two centuries. Similarly trustworthy, and reflecting their years of kitchen experience, The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion offers over 400 recipes for all kinds of basic and up-to-the-minute specialties--from pancakes and waffles to muffins and quickbreads; from coffee cakes, pizzas and crackers, to hearthbreads, cakes and cookies, including two complete chocolate chip recipes, for soft and crispy kinds. This is one of those books that no baking kitchen should lack--not only for its comprehensive repertoire and recipe dependability, but for the intimate ease with which it fulfills its promise. What this means, partly, is that technical information is perfectly pitched to ensure relaxed understanding, offering neither too much nor too little detail. It's the range and quality of these baking "backstories," including, for example, how to control cookie-dough spreading while baking, plus numerous hints and shortcuts, that help make the book so valuable.

Beginning, sensibly, with a concise section on measuring--the authors "first plea" is that readers buy and use a scale--the book then treats breakfast specialties, such as Gingerbread Pancakes and Pumpkin Praline Waffles; pursues quickbreads like Maple Cornbread; cobblers including those made under both cake and pie crusts; Sesame Crisps among other crackers; and yeast breads, such as bagels, a basic White Bread 101, and an exemplary Italian Bread, among others. An entire chapter is devoted to sourdough with instructions for creating your own starter. Readers will also want to try Strawberry-Lemon Chess Pies, Chocolate Lava Cake, and Pumpkin Cheesecake. A concluding everything-you've-always-wanted-to know ingredients glossary includes explorations on flour milling; of "faux fats" and sweeteners; the use of eggs in a dough or batter, in yeast breads and custards; information on the latest in European-style cultured butters, among much else. Color photos and numerous step-by-step technical drawings provide further guidance. With an illustrated section on tools, too, both high-tech and homey, such as the flour wand, the book has it all, for new and seasoned bakers alike. --Arthur Boehm

From Publishers Weekly

The company that makes one of the pantry's most recognized baking ingredients-flour-presents this practical and comprehensive baking cookbook. The book begins, of course, with a no-nonsense discussion of measuring flour, a step in the baking process that thwarts many would-be pastry chefs (the authors urge homecooks to use a scale). Recipes are divided into category-based chapters-from breakfasts (with dozens of derivatives of pancakes and waffles), fried doughs, and quickbreads to yeasted breads, cookies and bars, and cakes. Carb-haters, beware: there's not much protein in these pages. Many recipes are tried-and-true formulas for favorite dishes, such as the Simple But Perfect Pancake, Simple Sugar Cookies, and Classic Blueberry Muffins; others are more daring variations on a theme, such as White Chocolate Hazelnut Cheesecake, and Potato, Dill and Onion Crackers. Detailed and logical explanations of how baking works, plus an in-depth discussion of baking ingredients make this a valuable guide for beginning bakers and an informative addition for pastry aficionados. 16 pages of color photos. 200 line drawings.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 640 pages
• Publisher: Countryman Press; 1 edition (September 25, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0881505811
• ISBN-13: 978-0881505818
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 8.2 x 2.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (63 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #7,694 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

149 of 149 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Cookbook! Helped Me Bake My Best Apple Pie Yet!, November 10, 2003

By	Jennifer Juday "Working Mom & Cook" (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

THE KING ARTHUR FLOUR BAKER'S COMPANION is a delight, both as a book to read and enjoy, and as a cookbook. The slightly oversized pages allow for plenty of room for the well-laid out text. Ink and paper colors make it easy to read. The handful of photos is attractive and inspiring. Line drawings are well rendered and do a great job of illustrating techniques. Each recipe includes a short or not-so-short comment on the recipe from the King Arthur team. The comments are chatty and interesting enough that you may find yourself paging through the book, reading it for pleasure.

As a guidebook and manual, THE KING ARTHUR FLOUR BAKER'S COMPANION is excellent. The book is designed to make it easy to scan and plan. Each recipe tells you how much you'll make. Quantities of ingredients are given in both cups/teaspoons and in ounces. When a dish is made in distinct stages (such as crust and filling), both the ingredients and the instructions are separately labeled. Each recipe also -- though you may not want to know! -- gives very complete nutritional information (calories; grams of fat, protein, carbohydrates, sugars, and fiber; mg of cholesterol and sodium; vitamins and minerals).

Like THE JOY OF COOKING, THE KING ARTHUR FLOUR BAKER'S COMPANION includes long sections that talk about the basics, in addition to great specific recipes. I am comfortable with the basics of making piecrust. I read their section on basic piecrusts and it was very solid information. I was so inspired that I decided to step out and try a variation, the Long Flake Method. The instructions were very clear and easy to understand and follow. It was like having a master baker there to give you great bits of advice like "Give your chilled dough 10-15 minutes to warm since you made it with all butter." My biggest challenge was believing that my dough should look as it did, as this method calls for visible pieces of fat in the dough. I gave in, followed the directions, and got a wonderfully flaky piecrust. To fill the crust, I used their recipe for The Best Apple Pie. It was delicious. They suggested a bit of rum, which gave this old favorite an exciting new twist. Things were going so well that I also tried their recipe for a streusel topping, and ended up with a fabulous, beautiful apple pie. I got an enthusiastic thumbs up (and clean plate) from my husband and positive reviews from a baker friend that tried it.

To address a possible concern you may have: While the King Arthur company sells excellent baking ingredients and tools, you would never know that from reading this book. There are no dicussions of the best ingredients and gadgets and how you can get them from King Arthur. There are no references to brand names, and no ingredients that you can only get from a specialty supplier. The King Arthur team is a class act. (And by the way, I have bought some of their spices. mixes and tools, and all have been excellent.)

THE KING ARTHUR FLOUR BAKER'S COMPANION is a book that you can read and enjoy. I recommend taking it into the kitchen and using it. The results will be delicious!

NOTE (June 2006): This continues to be a favorite cookbook of mine. I recently used their recipe for a yellow cake and got *rave* reviews from my husband and a number of friends. Their yellow cake recipe produces a simple and yet surprisingly sophisticated cake -- not too sweet and with a texture almost like a good pound cake. I used their recipe for little white rolls at Thanksgiving and got a thumbs up from family members. I could go on. Enjoy!

101 of 103 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The First Baking Book You Should Buy, February 22, 2004

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

This volume, subtitled the `All Purpose Baking Cookbook' perfectly fits the criteria I typically apply to a book in order to decide if I want to give it five stars. A book gets three stars if it meets my expectations. A book gets four stars if it meets my expectations in a very successful way. Typically, that means that it has few or no detected mistakes. A book gets five stars if it exceeds my expectations. This book certainly exceeded my expectations.

What I anticipated when I opened this book was a dry, technical work steeped in discussions of the effects of gluten and altitude and humidity on bread making, similar to some of the more detailed parts of better books on bread baking. All of these discussions are here, plus others on the finer points of measuring flour and types of flour, but with a difference.

The biggest surprise in the book was the light, personal touch of the writing. It all has the tone you may expect in a very good book on regional cooking. And, lo and behold, there is a hint of regionality and local tradition in the selection of materials in the book. In spite of the fact that King Arthur products are available throughout the country (unlike White Lily, for example), the book retains a very New England tone to it's selection of recipes. One prominent example is in the recipe for biscuits, where it advises all experienced Southern biscuit makers to simply skip that page, as since `we don't want to shock you with the way we make biscuits up north'.

That doesn't mean the book does not touch on every subject you may expect it to cover. As I said in my opening paragraph, it easily covers much more than what I expected. The very first chapter dealing with breakfast foods covers material not commonly covered in conventional baking surveys. Pancakes, waffles, crepes, French toast and their allies are not covered in either of my favorite general baking books (Julia Child's `Baking With Julia' and Nick Malgieri's `How to Bake'). If that were not enough, it presents recipes in such a way that you can prepare baking mixtures ahead to much the same effect as if you were laying in a supply of Bisquik. One of the secrets is in the use of dried buttermilk. I have seen this product in my local megamart, but have not until now had a clue as to how to use it.

The homey, comfortable feeling of the book extends to even that most difficult subject of breads made with wild yeasts (Sourdough, Pain au Levain). The book does not cover every different type of artisinal bread you may find in such books as Carol Field's `The Italian Baker' for instance, and it does not cover such important French specialties as brioche as deeply as Rose Levy Beranbaum's `The Bread Bible', but it does cover them, and so much else as well. Another contributor to the warm feel of the book is the layout. Pages are airy with well positioned sidebars, titles, and tables. Technical information is always at the same place, accessible, but unobstrusive to the browser.

In the long run, the greatest value of the book is in it's encyclopediac coverage of just about every kind of baking you can do, extending the definition of baking to things outside the oven to include the griddle (pancakes, crepes, etc) and the deep fryer (doughnuts, beignets, etc). In fact, just about the only product made with wheat flour which this book does not cover is pasta, although it comes very close in it's chapter on dumplings.

The more technical aspects of the book are quite up to snuff in spite of the warmth of the presentation. Where appropriate, all measurements are given by both weight and volume. The importance of measuring by weight is also discussed in detail at the beginning of the book. The book also includes a nutritional analysis of each and every recipe, giving portion size, calories, fat, protein, complex carbohydrates, dietary fiber, sodium, potassium, vitamin A, iron, calcium, and phosphorus. I'm impressed. I confess that it is slightly easier for this book to provide this as they can make the very safe assumption that it is their brand of flour which is being used.

The sixty pages on ingredients at the end of the book are easily worth the price of admission all by itself. It is no surprise that it gives a deep discussion of wheat and flour. What is surprising is that it also gives fairly detailed discussions of other products used in baking such as milk products, eggs, fats, sugars, fat substitutes, and sugar substitutes.

The very nice section on baking tools is an equally valuable resource. In one page the book gives you everything you may see in a much larger three page article in `Cooks Illustrated'. I am really amazed at the value you get for a list price of $35 for this book. Just consider a comparison to an Ina Garten book 1/3 as long with much less authoritative information for the same price. Amazing.

I am not at all surprised to see an endorsing blurb on the back cover from Alton Brown. I strongly suspect that he will be cribbing material from this book for one or more `Good Eats' shows, if he has not already. The only thing I find missing in the whole book is a decent bibliography. This type of encyclopedic reference really deserves one.

This will easily be my new `go to' book for baking. I will not give up the recipes I have come to love from other sources and I will probably still consult other sources for artisnal bread recipes, but I will definitely come to this book first for any new baking task I have in mind. I will not expect every single recipe to be perfect, but I will consider everything I find here with respect. Very highly recommended.

46 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous - a Must-Have For ANY Baker, January 10, 2004

By	Jennifer A. Wickes "Food Writer" - See all my reviews

If you need a fantastic baking book on how to bake virtually everything, then this is the book for you!

Most cookbooks out there fail to mention little things that are extremely important in a recipe, such as sifting flour, using eggs that are at room temperature, which type of oil to use etc. Most cookbook authors either know this information and figure you do too, or the author does not know these techniques and those recipes in those books are not all they could be. And most cookbook buyers know how to read a recipe, yet do not understand it.

King Arthur Flour is a company that has been in business for over 200 years. It is their business to know flour, and to understand how to use it. It is also to their benefit to educate their flour buyers in how to bake better, so they will be happier with the end product, and thus buy more flour and even recommend their flour to their friends. In their latest book: The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion: The All-Purpose Baking Cookbook they explain why you need to sift your flour (it adds air to the mixtures which aids in leavening), why French Toast bread should be stale, why you only fry in certain oils and much more. They also offer recipes for virtually everything; from breakfast foods to quick breads, from doughnuts to yeast breads, from cobblers to cookies and cakes, as well as pies and quiches. This book even offers a section on which kitchen tools are the best for your baking projects: from type of chocolates to pie pans. This is a must-read section for any baker.

This cookbook is designed for 90% of the cookbook buying population. This cookbook is fantastic as now you can understand what you are doing rather than just following directions. When you decide to make modifications to your recipes, now you will know what parameters you must maintain if you want your recipe to turn out. For example, almond oil will not work when frying doughnuts, as it has a very low smoke point.

For the price of this book, you get more than what you are paying for. This is an excellent book and should be a standard in any home that has any baking!

For added interest, King Arthur Flour offers free baking seminars across the country, as well as online classes.