BakeWise: The Hows and Whys of Successful Baking with over 200 Magnificent Recipes

Bakewise was a winner!

Bakewise was a winner! I don't have Cookwise so I wasn't quite prepared for the level of detail! This lady has covered every aspect of baking you could ever have questions about. Want to know all about chocolate, where it comes from, different types, and how it works in baked goods - check! How about the science behind a flaky pie crust, a perfect meringue, or the emulsion process involved in making a buttercream frosting? That's all here too. Just want some good recipes? So far I've made:

Shirley's Crazy Cake - this recipe intrigued me. No eggs and you mix all the ingredients in the pan you bake it in! Literally no clean to clean! It turned out very good with a nice light crumb and a mocha flavor from the cocoa and coffee. She has a similar recipe called Serious Stuff Gingerbread that is on my list to try.

E-Z Delicious Peanut Butter Cookies Another interesting recipe technique-wise, no flour! This recipe is just peanut butter, brown sugar, an egg, and some toffee bits. These are the best peanut butter cookies I've ever had! They had an intense peanut butter flavor and a sort of soft, chewy texture almost like a chewy chocolate chip cookie. I took these to work and got numerous requests for the recipe.

Rooster's Famous Fire Crackers - This is the only one I've made so far that I didn't care for. It's essentially saltines with red pepper and cheese baked. She explains why they get really crispy and cheesy and I though the idea sounded intriguing, but the end product didn't do it for me.

Simpley Wonderful Strata - Brownes Billows of Cheesy Puff - wow! This was great! I've never had a strata puff up this much. It was cheesy and puffy and delicious! It would be a perfect Christmas morning meal.

There are so many other recipes in this cookbook I want to try! I have marked Take-Your-Breath-Away Lemon Pound Cake, Sweet Pears and Crunchy, Roasted Walnut Muffins, "Touch of Grace" Southern Biscuits and a bunch of others!

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Wise but not inspiring

I got the book so I could hopefully solve the mystery/science of baking, not that I was ever bad at it but...wanted to know how it all worked. This book did that, but I have to say that I don't really want to cook any of the recipes. The only recipe that I felt the urge to make was the biscuits--and I don't generally eat biscuits.

Overall the book answered my questions, however as a cookbook it is not that interesting. Maybe if there were more pictures of the finished product I would have found inspiration.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Nook book has no pictures

Exceptional book with detailed science behind the recipes that can make you a better cook. If you buy it, get the hardcover. The Nook book while containing all the text lacks all of the pictures. 5 star book worth only 3 stars in Nook form.

Kitchen Science

This book has only 5 chapters, but they are stuffed with recipes and information you can't get many other places. Shirley explains almost exhaustively, the whys & how-to's of baking. Her scientific explanations are concise and easy to understand, broken into short segments of reading. Her 'What This Recipe Shows' boxes are the academic objectives, several of which are the same in like recipes. For anyone who likes to ask, 'Why?' or anyone needing to answer the 'Why?' questions, this book is an indispensable resource. It is also an excellent gift for anyone wanting to produce professional, 'culinary-degree-looking' finished baked goods. It would be tedious for someone who wants recipes with which to 'just get cooking.'

What a wealth of information, even for an intermediate baker/cook

This is one of the most prized of all my collection of cookbooks. I will continue to go to it and re-read, learn and enjoy it. There were tips and information that were new and some were reminders. It might be a bit over whelming to a new cook at first, but it would be a wonderful gift and well worth giving. I was a little intimidated by the "mathamatical" information/equations, it was pretty in-depth in some areas but overall it was a wonderful read and an awesome baking tool!

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