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

Cake Bible

The original Cake Mix Doctor cookbook by Ann Brynn
One of my best investments ever, besides my stand mixer

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 have the cake mix doctor, and Martha stewarts Baking handbook
This month Taste of Home magazine has a magazine out called Cakes that has some yummy looking cakes in 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.

For baking, the Cake Bible and the Cake Mix Doctor. For decorating - I would say the Wilton Encyclopeidas (I, II, and III) they're out of print now and hard to come by though.

I have both of Dede Wilson's wedding cake books. I love her books because her recipes are wonderful and her cakes are the kind that are meant to be eaten, not just looked at. She has a ton of information in her books.

I just received my copy of the Well decorated cake by Toba. I have no regrets, I took the day off from work to go through it.

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

It is mostly for cake ideas and design "how to"s although there are a few recipes. I bought it for the design ideas and the patterns in the back.

I have the Cake Bible, and the recipes I've tried have tasted very good.