Baking Illustrated Book

I believe that the best way to read this cookbook is to read it straight through. It is very educational and I hope has helped me to become a better baker (ask Elliott!). At the beginning there is a section on ingredients and equipment; the authors of the book tested different brands and give you their opinion on what is best. If they think that a name brand is no better than an off-brand, they will tell you. They also go into the science of ingredients such as the protein content in bread and how it affects baking, how yeast works, what baking powder is, etc.

There are then eight chapters on quick breads, yeast breads, pizza-type breads, pies, pastry, fruit desserts (crisps, cobblers, etc.), cakes, and cookies and bars. Each chapter has an introduction giving you background information and also scientific information about the baked goods. Each recipe also has an introduction stating what the desired outcome of the baked good would be, what happened when they tried different recipes, why they adjusted certain elements in the recipe, what mixing method they chose, why they chose a certain temperature, etc. Basically, it's very scientific. I know understand why it's so important to use cold cubes of butter in your biscuits and much more.

My major disappointment in the cookbook is that there was not one single recipe for any kind of sourdough bread! Elliott and I enjoy cooking with sourdough and I would really have liked some sourdough bread recipes. Also, in the pie section, there are some recipes for phyllo pies. I was looking forward to a good recipe for phyllo dough. There was none. Simply, "use frozen store-bought phyllo dough." Granted, phyllo dough is not easy to make, but you'd think a cookbook called "Baking Illustrated" would be able to have a recipe for it!

There were some things I disagreed with, based on my taste preferences such as not putting pineapple in carrot cake (and not making carrot cake a layer-cake), oil doesn't make a good pie crust (the best pie crust I've ever had thanks to my mother-in-law uses oil and milk) and when making lemon bars making a lemon curd for the topping because the crust always gets soggy (Elliott agrees, my lemon bar crusts never get soggy). Plus, there are just some recipes that we like and don't want to mess with trying it a different way. Also, every single sweet recipe called for salt. I don't like salt in my cookies, they didn't even try omitting the salt and no good reason was given for adding the salt.

I made a list of recipes to make and here is what I've made so far:

1. American sandwich bread with buttermilk - I thought it turned out excellent!
2. Gingerbread - Very good, although it's very similar to my mother-in-law's molasses muffins, so I'm not sure it's a necessary recipe to have.
3. Buttermilk doughnuts - These were easy and turned out quite well.
4. Focaccia - This recipe calls for potato; again, it was an excellent recipe and we have some frozen in the freezer that we're looking forward to eating!
5. Lemon meringue pie - I thought the pie tasted better as it aged.
6. Tarte Tatin - Basically an upside-down apple tart; I caramelized the apples a little long and so they were burnt, but Elliott said it still tasted good. I want to make it again and perfect the filling! The pastry had egg in it, which made it a little cakey and paired well with the caramel apple filling.

I think that's all; today I'm going to make oatmeal scones!

If you want to know more about the science of baking and become a better baker, I highly suggest this cookbook. I thought the best chapter was the yeast bread chapter.