Milk Street Bakes Is a Great Cookbook for Amateur Bakers.
Welcome to Cookbook of the Week. In this series, I highlight cookbooks that are unique, easy to use, or just special to me. While searching for a specific recipe online serves a quick purpose, flipping through a truly excellent cookbook has its own magic.
I think we can all agree that one of the best ways to get referrals is through word of mouth. After all, that’s what we do here, right? Well, I chose this week’s cookbook at the suggestion of Claire Lower, former longtime Lifehacker food writer and editor, and my former cooking hacks partner. We still manage to find time to talk about cleavers and cakes, and, as luck would have it, cookbooks. This week I’m excited to share Milk Street Baking with you.
I’d really like to jump right into what I prepared from the book, but I’ll be patient. Now I can tell you a little tidbit: even if you’re not in the mood to bake, there are some delicious things in the book that won’t fit in the oven at all (like the puff pastry I baked).
A little about the book
Milk Street Bakes just launched this week and is owned by Christopher Kimball, creator of 177 Milk Street and co-founder of America’s Test Kitchen. When I think of ATK and their cookbook (which I also love), I am reminded of how thorough and comprehensive their work is. Although Kimball and ATK are now separate entities, hints of the connection are clear when you flip through the pages of Milk Street Bakes. It feels like a resource you can turn to again and again when you need a reliable recipe.
There are 200 of them in this cookbook, from breads and muffins to cakes, pizzas and cookies. One of the features of this collection is that many of the recipes come directly from or are inspired by bakers around the world. Each recipe includes beautiful, detailed close-up photographs of the food. Any recipe that might seem intimidating at first due to the weaving or folding involved will certainly include a grid with step-by-step photos so you can feel confident as you begin the process.
A great cookbook for amateur bakers.
While the ingredient lists are generally user-friendly and sometimes quite brief, I wouldn’t consider this a cookbook for beginners. Rather, it will be a fun companion for the adventurous and adventurous baker who is interested in developing techniques, expanding their palate with a variety of flavors, and exploring the delectable baked goods of other countries – sweet and savory.
This cookbook doesn’t just provide a few helpful tips, but the rest of the pages fill the space with “aha” words. Milk Street Bakes tempts you with a must-bake gem today and an irresistible list of what you need to bake next. I’ve only had this cookbook for a month and it has as many bookmarks as some of my old book buddies.
Milk Street Bakes has quite a few bread recipes that I appreciate. I’ve often seen bread recipes omitted entirely separately from cookbooks, or bread recipes added sparingly so as not to scare anyone away with all that yeast and proofing. Meat-filled carbs, flatbread puffs, stuffed pizzas and seeded buns are plentiful and well explained in Milk Street Bakes . And this is true, because if there is one thing that unites the different cuisines of this world, it is bread.
Recipes You Can Expect
As I mentioned, the recipes cover a variety of baked goods from around the world, including some familiar ones. You can expect buttermilk scones, biscuits and banana bread, but there’s always an unexpected twist: inspiration from elsewhere or a combination of surprising flavors that revive outdated classics – a little cardamom here, a little brandy or tahini there.
Kimball brings you a collection of accessible recipes that include a balanced mix of origins, anecdotes, instructions, and tips. When it comes to cookbooks, I’ll always be the team photographer, and there’s no missed opportunity here. If you’re not sure how to roll olive bread, check the next page. You will be left in no doubt about what the finished product should look like if you follow the recipe.
Each recipe includes an ingredient list, title, and steps. Just before you start, there is always an important tip, such as: “Remember to sift the dry ingredients.” Sometimes the instructions can be a little long – each step is often a paragraph of several sentences – but that’s because the instructions are specific, detailing how to alternate ingredients or descriptions of what to look for so you can move on to the next one step. . A baker who is technically oriented and likes to do things right the first time will enjoy this learning style. For someone new to baking, it can feel overwhelming, and a restless cook is more likely to rush and miss things.
Dishes I chose this week
I had a great time choosing a recipe this week, so much so that I made two: Turkish Layered Flatbread and French Apple Pie. I settled on a cake first, but one evening I wanted to eat some lentil bread, so I baked a scone first.
This Turkish-style flatbread recipe says it all in the title: it’s an unleavened flatbread with delicate layers layered with bits of melted butter and butter mixture, and you fry it in a cast iron skillet. This is absolutely my idea of taste. The only thing I needed to be aware of, according to the hint before the instructions, was the rest time. As with many breads, the ingredient list was short: using all-purpose flour keeps the dough from becoming too chewy due to gluten and a little salt for flavor. The rest of the recipe was water, plus butter and oil for my rendered shortening mixture.
My scones bubbled and browned in the pan and only took a few minutes to cook each one. I quickly tore into the circle after that and it was all I was looking forward to – a crispy, charred, flaky crust giving way to elastic ribbons of buttery bread inside.
French apple pie has always remained in my bookmarks. There’s not much to say about this because it was a delight that went exactly as the recipe said. I chose this option with hesitation. The picture looked great, but I’m not usually a fan of apple pie because I find most cakes leave the apples raw and they bake into steamy slimy pockets and the apples fall out. But when I read the instructions and saw that the apples were cooked in butter first (which I always recommended to others ), I recognized Milk Street Bakes and recognized each other.
The hardest part of this recipe is peeling the nearly three pounds of apples, but being able to slice this nice cake is worth it. Real cake batter consists of a few basic ingredients and is surprisingly lean. I wouldn’t have guessed how little it’s used, but ultimately it’s just the lightest buffer to separate and showcase the real star – the buttery, brandy-smeared apples. I enjoyed this creamy, delicious apple-flavored cake three mornings in a row, then froze the other half of the cake to relive the experience again this weekend. The recipe doesn’t say you can do this, but we’ll see how it turns out.
How to buy
Milk Street Bakes can be purchased at a discount directly from the Milk Street store. It’s also on Amazon Kindle for $19.99 , which is great for saving paper, but I suggest the physical hardcover if you’re buying a gift or if you’re a real cookbook lover.