Better Homes and Gardens Baking: More than 350 Recipes Plus Tips and Techniques (Better Homes and Gardens Cooking)

I'm new to retirement. I've always wanted to teach myself how to bake, and I purchased a fabulous famous-brand stand mixer to help me with the task. When I would go into a book store--or wander around here on Amazon--looking for a comprehensive baking book, I couldn't identify one that appeared to be able to teach me the basics of *everything*, from baking bread to cookies to pies and even the formidable French croquembouche.

I've found it!

My mom always used the Better Homes and Gardens red-checked cookbook as I grew up in the 50's and 60's. She produced good and homey foods, but pretty simple fare, out of that classic 3-ring binder cookbook. She gave me my own copy as I moved out into my own home, but I found it too simple, too plain and too reliant on creamy canned soups and other prepared and processed foods. In her edition, there was a whole section on SPAM, for heaven's sake. So, I wasn't prepared for the breadth and depth of this ouevre by BHG.

Chapters: Basic Baking Techniques, Cookies, Bars and Brownies, Cakes and Cupcakes, Decorated Cakes, Pies and Tarts, Cheesecakes, Down Home Desserts, Artisan Breads, Quick Breads, Morning Favorites, Coffee Shop, Holiday Baking, and Weeknight Baking. Each chapter has basic instructions and information about the type of baking which is covered. Then, inside each of those chapters, the book provides ideas for "make-it-mine" for individualizing recipes--and for making mini-versions of recipes as well. There are instructions about using different types of flour, how to tweak a cheesecake to your family's specifications, how you can shape cinnamon rolls to your own liking, how to make a two layer cake into four gorgeous layers.

*****What I like most is that this cookbook is for the novice, but it allows the novice to grow up within the pages of the cookbook and helps him/her grow in skill and grow creatively AS skill develops.*****

The book is gorgeous, too. While the copy I received for review is a "working copy," I could see that the black and white photos and publisher's comments on pictures and such are clearly a work in progress. When this baby is released to the public, I'm going to buy myself a final copy in full and glorious color.

I've tried a couple recipes so far: the classic angel food cake and the "make-it-mine" blondies. I made the honey-version of the angel food cake, and it takes angel food cake to the sublime with a subtle, floral flavor, just a nice touch on the classic light, sweet cake. The "make-it-mine" blondies are part of the "individualize your baking" message of this cookbook--and I was able to drizzle some caramel sauce over mine for a delightfully unique, just-my-own, dessert bar.

I've bought cookbooks which have languished on my bookshelf. I don't think this one will. BHG, you did it!!

I have been baking for more than 60 years and it is still as much fun as it was all those years ago. It also happens to be the quickest, easiest way that I know of to shave big dollars off your grocery bill. Nothing has ever brought home the need for a good basic baking "how to" book than a discussion that I had some years back with a neighbor who insisted that I couldn't possibly be making a cake, since there was no empty box anywhere to be found. (She even looked in the garbage!) With that in mind, I've spent the last couple of days poring over every word, recipe & picture in [[ASIN:1118453263 Better Homes and Gardens Baking: More than 350 Recipes Plus Tips and Techniques]] - and yes, I've even made a few recipes. Here's what I've found.

The book is nicely laid out and features many full-page photos, one for nearly every recipe. I cannot speak to the quality of the photos since the advance reader copy I received is in black and white, but I can tell you that I often found it necessary to dig out my reading glasses due to gray print instead of black or a light print on a patterned page.

The book is divided into fourteen chapters. I've listed them along with comments regarding some chapters in order below.

BASIC BAKING TECHNIQUES - Discussions of various ingredients and basic equipment. Sections that I particularly liked included pan preparation, a list of substitutions, pictorial demonstrations of standard mixing methods used in baking (these are the primary reason your Grandma's recipes have no instructions) and an invaluable chart on page 26 of Baking Pan Capacities.

I found a number of surprising omissions in a book that claims to be a "GoTO Reference" - most prominently no discussion of various types of yeast, no mention of silicone bakeware and no discussion regarding mixers.

COOKIES
BARS & BROWNIES
CAKES & CUPCAKES

DECORATED CAKES - These are exceedingly basic, something on the order of what one might expect from a 12 year old or in a book intended for children. The only actual decorating technique included is a one paragraph blurb accompanying a single thumbnail picture on "How to Pipe." Look elsewhere to learn the basics of even simple cake decorating.

PIES & TARTS

CHEESECAKES - Nice selection of cheesecake recipes, with a page illustrating special techniques to help turn out a perfect cheesecake.

DOWN HOME DESSERTS

ARTISAN BREADS - Baking your own bread is Grandma's #1 All-time money-saving strategy. I found this section exceedingly disappointing. [[ASIN:1118453263 Better Homes and Gardens Baking: More than 350 Recipes Plus Tips and Techniques]] includes no discussion at all of the various types of yeast commonly found in every supermarket, nor the various techniques used to work with them. (Newer instant yeasts perform at temperatures that will kill regular active dry yeast.) While the editors did include a good basic White Bread recipe, along with a variation for Whole Wheat and several varieties of dinner rolls, a fair number of the breads included (Almond & Fennel Wheat Bread, Molasses Buckwheat Loaf, Whole Grain Caramelized Onion & Kale Bread are prominent examples) seemed to me to be filler, make it once and never again recipes rather than recipes that generations of women might treasure.

One recipe in particular stands out, that for Orange Bowknots. As luck would have it, as I was sitting here at the desk working my way through [[ASIN:1118453263 Better Homes and Gardens Baking: More than 350 Recipes Plus Tips and Techniques]] I happened to turn my chair and brushed against the spine of [[ASIN:0696200406 Better Homes and Gardens Complete Book of Baking]], the 1995 Better Homes & Gardens baking book, which also contains a recipe for Orange Bowknots. Surprisingly, the recipe in this new version, [[ASIN:1118453263 Better Homes and Gardens Baking: More than 350 Recipes Plus Tips and Techniques]], uses half again as much flour with only half of the yeast specified in the 1995 version of the recipe. I suspect this new version will not be as satisfactory as the 1995 version.

QUICK BREADS
MORNING FAVORITES

COFFEE SHOP - Most of the recipes in this chapter involve the use of purchased phyllo dough or puff pastry. One recipe, Raspberry Éclairs, uses choux pastry. This would have been a great "Make It Your Own" recipe, as the same choux pastry used for éclairs is used for cream puffs, but no variations, not even one for standard Chocolate Éclairs, are given.

HOLIDAY BAKING - Many traditional old favorites are entirely missing.

WEEKNIGHT BAKING - This section uses mixes.

*****Kudos From Grandma*****

[[ASIN:1118453263 Better Homes and Gardens Baking: More than 350 Recipes Plus Tips and Techniques]] does an excellent job of presenting clear directions, both written and pictorial, of various techniques to help the new baker achieve good results.

I especially liked the "Make It Your Own" recipe included in each chapter and the Make It Mini tips included with a number of recipes. It is exactly this kind of innovation rather than slavishly following a recipe as written that leads to new recipes, makes baking fun and keeps baking fresh and exciting even 60 years later.

*****Not So Much*****

I found a surprising lack of basic recipes. Sage & Pepper Popovers with no mention of just plain Popovers or Raspberry Éclairs with no mention of Chocolate Éclairs or Cream Puffs.

Grandma's $0.02 - If you missed Home Economics and would like to learn to bake, [[ASIN:1118453263 Better Homes and Gardens Baking: More than 350 Recipes Plus Tips and Techniques]], while not as thorough as it might be, is a good basic starting point.

Recommended

This is a great book for learning about baking and getting a hang of the fundamentals in both ingredient and recipe type. HOWEVER, if you're looking for one of those beautiful baking books, this is not it. I would equate this book to be that of like a suburb mom cook book. Bars, cupcakes, weird shaped cakes for kids birthday's. This is not a gourmet cook book by any means. It just informs and gets the job done. I was just hoping they'd have some fancy stuff that not only leaves your mouth and tummy happy, but your eyes, too. If you want cakes with all of the beauty and flair to go along with the flavor your best bet is still pinterest.

Bought this for my fiancé and she loves it. It was a great idea because now I get a ton of sweets.

Baking is my passion! The Better Homes and Garden Baking is an excellent addition to my baking library. I love the "Make-It-Mine" which added some easy options to the huge number of recipes. The format of the book was eady to follw with good clear directions. I always appreciare good photos of the product and they were there for every recipe.

The Better Homes and Gardens Baking is as general a book on baking as the name sounds. The recipes go from extremely simple (Classic Sugar Cookies, great recipe!) to the more difficult (Cafe au Lait Cheesecake, another good one). Anyone who has never really had any experience baking can pick this book up and familiarize themselves with some essential baking knowledge as outlined at the beginning of the book. Basic concepts, tools and ingredients are discussed in the first 30 or so pages. The inexperienced baker could then fairly easily whip up the recipes in at least half the book. This book can give a new student of baking quite a bit of confidence in what they are doing. You can build on that.

There are many recipes which require a further level of skill to make these successfully. They will require experience and practice which only comes with time. Believe me it is easy to make things look and taste like they came from the bakery once you know what you are doing and have the right tools. There are also a number of recipes like Zoo Animal Cupcakes and Spider Web Cake which are variations on a common recipe, like yellow cake and frosting, which just have different kinds of designs on them. There is nothing really unique about any of these except the way they are decorated.

We found most of the classic, foundation recipes that we tried to be very good. There are great, easy recipes for Classic New York Style Cheesecake, Classic Carrot Cake and Flaky Biscuits. These recipes are about as good as anything I've ever tried and several have moved into the regular rotation in our baking schedule. We were not overly impressed with many of the bread recipes and really didn't find any yeast breads we were fond of. Just to experiment we tried making a Mock Sourdough Bread (no starter) and found the result to be pretty awful compared to real sourdough, a difficult recipe not in this book. If you are really interested in yeast and artisian breads, you will probably be disappointed with the selection here.

All the cookies and pies we tried came out nice. A basic Pie Crust is also a good recipe component, although there are better. Quick bread recipes like Banana, Pumpkin and Zucchini were great. We also found the Cinnamon Rolls recipe to be among the best we've found. With over 350 recipes there is plenty to look through.

My biggest problem with the book is that every measurement is exclusively listed in volume measurements (cups, tablespoons, etc) instead of weight measurements. I have found baking recipes to be far more accurate and the results very repeatable when measurements are made by weight instead of volume. Flour is a notoriously fickle ingredient when it comes down to measuring by volume. A lightly packed cup and a densely packed cup of flour can contain very different weights although they are both a cup full. For this reason I usually skip baking books where ingredient weight is not listed. Fortunately the recipes in this book are generally broad enough that it doesn't make too much of a difference until that time when you try to duplicate the previous batch of perfect chocolate chip cookies and you can't seem to get it quite right.

Bottom Line: A good, basic baking primer. Great for confidence building in new cooks.

Helpful baking tips to use with this book: Use an oven thermometer to calibrate your oven temperature with what the settings are. You will be amazed at how different they can be and on some of these recipes that could be the difference between frustration and bliss. Also, stop opening the oven to check on your work! Every time you do the temperature inside the oven changes. If your oven temperature is correct then Trust your Timer!

I cannot see any reason why anyone would not love this book! Normally when I buy a cookbook there are very few recipes I want to try but this book has such a great variety of yummy tasting recipes there is very few recipes I don't want to try. I am going to be gaining a lot of weight this year with trying all these great dishes! The tips and techniques they show is a great teaching aid for the cook who wants to learn. I have to run to the store and buy ingredients I have baking to do!

Bought this for my granddaughter and after looking at it, bought one for myself. There’s a lot of useful information and explanations of how to make each recipe your own. Love it!

I brought this book after looking through the book at Barnes and Noble and wanted to try a lot of the recipes. I have already made a few of the recopies and they turn out great also If you are new to baking this is a great cookbook to have.

I have not purchased a baking book for a long time, but when I checked this one out at my local library, I knew right away I had to have it. It has lots of good, basic (but good) baked goods--not fancy stuff we don't like. I'm currently working my way through the cheesecake section, but have made some muffins, cookies and hot rolls. I would recommend this to anyone, from starting out baker to those of us who like to bake quite a bit and like to have our recipes for baking all in one handy place. (Oh, and lots of pretty pictures, too!)