One of the realities of living in this day and age is that there aren’t always enough hours in the day. We have new technologies and tools – compared to, for instance, our grandmothers – to make our lives easier. And this includes making our lives easier in the kitchen. Baking from scratch at home is one of the most rewarding things you can do, but not every recipe is really going to be compatible with contemporary life (as much as some of us might like to spend all day in the kitchen!). The Modern Baker is the newest cookbook from Nick Maligeri and it is a book that is aimed at a very modern audience: us.
The cookbook aims to streamline recipes, from muffins to breads to pastries, by both simplifying the instructions and making them much more specific.The tips can save lots of prep time, as well as tell you what your dough should look and feel like at every stage of the game. As a result, the recipes are very easy to follow and both the very basic and more complicated recipes seem accessible to anyone. The value in this book is not just the recipes, it’s the fact that Maligeri does such a good job of teaching the techniques throughout. These techniques are what make people good bakers and, while you can’t really teach intuition, you can certainly come quite close. All of the recipes have something to teach to readers and the range in the book is such that there are recipes to hold everyone’s interest. The photos are really outstanding and, as is so often the case with cookbooks, are very motivating – especially with the writers assurances that it is possible to make them all and have them turn out well.
Nick also has a website set up that will act as a further resource for bakers. There’s not much on it yet, but his planned video demos should really
Sara
September 8, 2008I love baking, but I’m all for recipes that streamline the process and hopefully keep the dirty dishes at a minimum!
LAmonkeygirl
September 8, 2008I have several of his baking books, and what I find most interesting about them is that you can see how the style of food photography and book design has changed over the past ten years. There’s a marked difference between the appearance of his earlier books and this one, which has a very Martha Stewart/Real Simple look to it.