This is my favorite book on cooking and is one of my favorite books of all kinds!

It is much more than a cookbook; it's a course in baking. Rather than simply presenting recipes, it presents an approach to developing one's own recipes. It is very open-ended, suggesting approximate quantities and types of alternative ingredients and the considerations involved in choosing different ingredients or cooking techniques in preparing a particular type of baked product, but in most cases it does not present a formula for producing any exact result.

One might think from its lack of specifics that it is not a book for beginners, but I disagree -- I think it is the ideal book for beginners. By presenting open ended recipes, providing authoritative discussions on food chemistry and food science, and by encouraging experimentation, it provides the tools for a cook at any level of expertise to experience the greatest joy of cooking, which is to produce a unique, personal work of art at the table.

At its price, this makes a great gift. ( )

Not one recipe in this cookbook has ever failed me. I don't remember where I acquired it, but King Arthur Flour made a lifelong friend of me with this collection of recipes.
(john) ( )