Hi,
I have a gift certificate to a bookstore and wanted to invest the money in getting a must-have book for baker? I own the Whimsical Bakehouse book, Cakes to Dream on, The Wedding book and 50 Easy Party Cakes. I bake from scratch and would love to find a book with great recipies and ample information about baking. Any ideas???
Thanks!
Inma
You're looking for something more on baking than decorating? I have way too many books - yet not enough if you know what I mean. If you can explain what you want the most of in the book - I might be able to recommend something.
Debbie
If you're baking from scratch, Rose Levy Berenbaum's THE CAKE BIBLE is definately the book you need!!
The recipes are wonderful, and the quantities are listed very precisely so you can scale up or down with consistent results... Rose explains some of the basic baking chemistry behind each recipe, and always offers variations and complimentary serving suggestions (i.e. which frstings to use with each cake)
It's an absolute must-have in my kitchen! I use it all the time, and I love it! 
I picked this book up not long ago b/c of the fantastic pictures and "how to"'s in it.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=b4022MeBo5&isbn=0789313618&itm=7
Contessa, that looks like a beautiful book! I have an Amazon GC that a friend gave me to get a cake book, I think I'll get that one.
For anyone else interested, Amazon has this book for $23.10, list price is $35.00!
Laura.
It is a very neat book. I am going to do a cake inspired by the one on the front for a birthday cake I have due next weekend. There is a butterfly wedding cake on the inside a friend of mine is going to do for her cousin's shower cake. The patterns are all included in the back of the book.
Thank you all for the recommendations. I had been toying with the idea of the Cake Bible since I´ve heard so many people talk about the recipes being good. Have you all had that experience with it???
I have a few Wilton books about cake decorating and for ideas I have a few America Cake Decorating magazines and also a Debbie Brown book that it´s just way too cute for words. I´ve been checking out books from the library and I´m taking classes to learn new techniques, but I´m aware that even if a cake looks beautiful, the really important thing is how it tastes. You might get people interested in your cakes by just the looks of them but if they don´t taste good people won´t come back to you.
Barefoot_Contessa, I checked that book out and it looks really good too. Is it mostly for ideas on cakes but not that many recipes?
I might go and use my gift certificate today. Now I´m all excited about it!
Thanks,
Inma
I have the Cake Bible, and the recipes I've tried have tasted very good.
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