Bake -- Book Review

 Disclosure: Tuttle Publishing gave me a copy of this book free of charge for this review. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. They also sent me a copy to giveaway! As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation. 

Hazel loves to bake with me in the kitchen. It is something she has always enjoyed and we do not do it very often (mostly because I'm dieting and trying to avoid the sweets and carbs). However it is something I think every child should get to do and I really appreciated reviewing this book because it forced me to bake with her. 

 Now just looking through Bake by Alison Thompson and photography by Adrian Lander, and at the recipes and pictures made my mouth water. The book is divided into chapters of Basic Recipes, Breads, Pizzas, Cakes, Baked Desserts, Muffins and Scones, Cookies and Brownies, Pastries, Croissants, Brioches and Doughnuts, and Gluten-free Baking. I wish I had that last chapter when I tried going gluten-free. It includes sweet recipes as well as savory recipes. There are recipes for quiches, meat pies, fish tarts as well as all of your usual sweets and some combinations I had not heard of before. So far we have made three recipes and plan to make some more. We started with Apple and Cinnamon Buns.

Hazel started helping me make the dough but got bored while it had to rise and didn't want to come back for the finishing job. I do not think I rolled it out enough and we were not in love with them. They were good, but not great. I also think I should have cut the apples smaller. We used fresh apples that I cooked in the microwave since we did not have any canned apples. 

 Next we tried the Banana Cake with Cinnamon Buttercream. Now besides using too small of a pan which caused the house to smoke up and the fire alarms to go off, this was our biggest success. Do NOT use too small of a pan. It will overflow and make a mess in your oven if you do. Trust me, I did it. (And yes, I went to a job interview with my hair smelling of smoke, but I got the job.) Hazel helped me make the cake. She is the official banana masher in our family, but she also helped with the measuring and mixing. I made the frosting and frosted the cake while she was at my mother-in-law's (since I had my interview), so she did not help with that. This cake was a huge hit. We all loved it and the two friends we shared it with loved it as well. 

The cake was flavorful and easy (when you do not overfill the pan) to make. The frosting was extremely easy with only three ingredients and very tasty with the cake. 

The final recipe we tried was the Spiced Apple Muffins. Again I used fresh apples instead of the canned apples. I cut them pretty small as well. These muffins were good, but not great. They were a little dry to me, but I think that may be more preference than anything. We did enjoy them all. 

Next we want to make the Pumpkin Scones and the Ginger Cake with Whipped Honey Buttercream recipes. Hazel and I will have to see how the scones compare to Starbucks. They just put the fall pastries out this week. 

Anyway, we are loving exploring the recipes from this book and plan to try many more. We will definitely be trying the gingerbread cookies this Christmas. If you love to bake, be sure to check it out. The recipes and pictures make your mouth water. Every recipe has a picture and they are easy to follow. They have every day ingredients in them as well.