Renny Darling

This book, without a doubt, is my favorite lifetime baking book. I just love how this book is arranged, almost like a coloring book, with those thick, rough pages on which you can write or color. I write comments on all of my recipes so this is especially nice for me. Indeed you can color in this book, too. The illustrations, especially the repeating borders are so delightful that they just invite coloring.

You might wonder about the recipes. They are terrific. They’re composed of all the “just regular” ingredients I stock in my house so I have no need to do special shopping when I’m in the mood to bake. In addition, so many of the recipes have turned out so superbly that I readily make new recipes without wondering first if they will succeed or fail.

For me, who uses organic produce, I love the idea, as suggested in this book, of grating an entire half an orange (juice, pith, and peel) into a cake. What flavor it gives!

I also treasure the page that shows me how different size baking pans match each other. That helps so much in a recipe for which I don’t have the right size pan. I will admit, however, that after making many of these recipes, I’ve proceeded to buy the right size pan…only because that’s what goes with certain recipes.

Honestly, I can’t think of one thing I don’t like about this book. It’s truly a baking treasure.… (more)