Baking cookbooks for beginners, the best ones anyway, should be helpful, like having an extra hand in the kitchen, as well as inspiring. Here are my baking book recommendations for you, you sweet little baker.
If you are brand new to baking anything, What Should A Beginner Bake may be helpful for you.
Generally anything written by King Arthur Baking Co., Cook's Illustrated, Cook's Country or America's Test Kitchen will be a solid choice with inspiring recipes and reliable information.
Another recommendation for new bakers is anything by the late Maida Heatter, who was really a cookie queen.
What's the Best Baking Cookbook for a Beginner?
What to Look for in a Baking Book
- Look for books that include photos, especially process shots
If you are at a bookstore browsing the cookbook section, look for books that include a photo for each recipe.
You may not see process shots, in fact most likely you won’t, because photos drive up the cost of publishing but it is helpful to see a finished shot of whatever recipe you’re attempting.
Look for Headnotes
Look for clear instructions as well as "headnotes" or descriptions leading each recipe.
Headnotes are often found above a recipe in an italicized font.
The headnotes might advise the reader on a specific ingredient needed for the recipe and where it might be found. Or a headnote might give a bit of history behind the dish or its name.
A headnote is to a recipe what a book jacket description is to a book. Something to entice and seduce a reader to purchase or to make the recipe.
Generally anything written by King Arthur Baking Co., Cook's Illustrated, Cook's Country or America's Test Kitchen will be a solid choice with inspiring recipes and reliable information.
Another recommendation for new bakers is anything by the late Maida Heatter, who was really a cookie queen.
Heatter wrote Cookies Are Magic.
Heatter also wrote The Brand New Book of Great Cookies (circa 1995). I have this one and I really like it, even though there are no photos, just the occasional illustration.
Marbled, Swirled, And Layered by San Francisco food blogger Irvin Lin, who created the site, Eat the Love, also makes the list. Don't you love that name, Eat the Love, for a food blog? So clever.
Lin began his career as a graphic designer (originally from my hometown of St. Louis) and you can really see his artistic talent in his photos and food styling and recipes. Everything is so creative.
"He doesn’t just paint the lily; he bejewels and shellacs it, too."
--New York Times
I envy artists who turn into food photographers and bloggers because their work tends to have a complexity that you don't see in Sally Food Blogger's work.
Marbled, Swirled, And Layered, will inspire you to do different things with your baked goods like make pistachio butter and swirl it through a pan of brownies. Life changing I tell you.
While including Lin's book for inexperienced bakers is questionable, I wanted to list it because his photos and recipe descriptions will inspire you.
Coming in October will be the release of the King Arthur Baking Company Essential Cookie Companion.
Speaking of King Arthur Baking Company, if you need any baking supplies, like pans or sanding sugar, they have very nice things. You'll pay more and you'll pay for shipping, but the product quality can't be beat.
I just reviewed a digital prepublication copy of Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Cookie Bible and I can't wait to get a hard copy in my paws. It will be released on Nov. 23.
I like it when a recipe writer gives you a formula for a recipe as a guide so you can fill the recipe with whatever ingredients you prefer. Berenbaum has a recipe for Freedom Treasure Cookies in which you decide the "treasure additions," perhaps nuts, zest or chocolate.
While The Cookie Bible has recipes for beginning and advanced bakers, I'm including it in the baking cookbooks for beginners roundup because Beranbaum does an exceptional job of explaining recipes and how to get them to turn out successfully.
If Beranbaum sounds familiar to you, it's because you may have drooled on her The Cake Bible in bookstores some years ago. She's written slightly less than a zillion cookbooks.
BraveTart by Stella Parks is another good one to add to your shelf. Parks has run the BraveTart blog for several years and is very generous with her time with responding to questions from readers as well as on Reddit of all places.
BraveTart covers all things dessert, not just cookies, and was named the best baking book of the year in 2017 by The Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, Bon Appétit, the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Boston Globe.
A few ladies in a baking group I'm in suggested including a few classics, which they couldn't live without.
Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook
And of course:
Tell me which book you choose and what you make.
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