Baking Basics and Beyond.

Pat Sinclair

Published By: Surrey Books

Book Category: Non-Fiction, Cooking

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Reviewed by Diane Snyder

Baking Basics tells you everything you ever wanted to know about baking–and then some. The first section has a list of pans, equipment and ingredients commonly used in baking. Ingredients are listed separately and some information is given for each ingredient such as the types of yeasts and how to successfully use them, the chocolates and how to melt them. Most of the ingredients are staples that you will already have in your cupboards; however, should there be an unusual ingredient a suggested substitution is given such as almond extract for Amaretto liqueur. More is told about ingredients as they are being used. At the end of the recipe are Baker’s Notes and/or Secrets to Success, which give extra hints, techniques or substitutions.

At the beginning of each section are more easy-to-follow directions and guidance to help increase your success. Each recipe has step-by-step, clear and understandable directions. The recipes are familiar foods such as cinnamon-coated snickerdoodles, tangy, luscious lemon meringue pie and basic pizza. A few not so familiar but deceptively easy include Tourtiere, the French Canadian meat pie. I recommend the Savory Chicken Cobbler, a cross between a chicken pot pie and chicken and dumplings. This dish is light and easy, using a rotisserie chicken and frozen mixed vegetables. Make_ certain you have several people to share the 4-6 servings, or you will eat it all.

The Beyond part of the cookbook is “embellishments that transform a cake from basic to deluxe.” Simple-to-do frostings, sauces, glazes and garnishes that add something special to desserts, taking them from so-so to spectacular.

Calorie count and nutritional values are not in the recipes, however, while you are tasting a piece of warm, fresh-from-the-oven, Grammy’s apple pie or Mississippi Mud Cake, calories are not uppermost in your mind.

If you are a beginning cook, this cookbook would be the perfect place to start. Mrs. Sinclair takes your hand and leads you through, telling you what you need to know to complete a successful and delicious food. You can be tossing out scones and popovers like a trained chef. Do not go to your kitchen without this cookbook.

Armchair Interviews says: What time is dinner?

Author website: http://www.patcooksandbakes.com