When I Want to Bake

I think about what ingredients I have on hand, and then I turn to my collection of cookbooks. Recipes and inspiration for baking surround me, and I try to rely on my cookbooks before adding to the substantial number of recipes I already posses. Every time I read the food section in the Los Angeles Times or the New York Times, I see things I want to make and am tempted to print copies of their recipes. The same is true for when I am scrolling through Instagram or reading my Victoria Magazine. Heather, my friend who is a brilliant cook and baker, gave me the idea of having separate binders for the recipes I collect from online sources. So now I have a bulging binder (see below, bottom shelf) of savory foods and a smaller one of baked goods which work against my intention to stop collecting recipes. I suppose I should just give up; there are worse vices.

Though I could wax poetic about each of my cookbooks, recalling good memories of celebrations and warm family times, I will limit myself to just three baking books today. Among my very favorites is In The Sweet Kitchen, by Regan Daley. I like this book for its clear, precise writing with understandable directions, and for its practical, useful pages about what to substitute for what if you get in a jam, and the different sizes of baking vessels. A recipe I have made over and over again is the Plum and Cardamom Sweet Bread below. You can sub in apples or pears, but waiting until plum season makes a superior cake.

There was a time (which my daughters would refer to as among the best years of their childhood) when I would make a different cake every week. Each girl had her favorite, and of course I had my favorites as well. During this epic period, I relied on Nancie McDermott’s book, Southern Cakes. Though I made a few coconut cakes for my mom, the hands down favorite cake from this book was the Brown Sugar Pound Cake. When Jane was recovering from having her appendix removed, two of her friends brought this cake over to her to cheer her up. It remains a reliable hit in our family.

Many years ago, my brother gave me The Village Baker’s Wife, by Gayle and Joe Ortiz. I fell in love with the recipes and the story of how Joe is the one who first became a bread baker, and the way his wife Gayle became an expert pastry cook and baker. Shockingly, I have never been to Gayle’s Bakery in Capitola, California, but whenever a friends tell me they are heading to the Santa Cruz area, I insist they go to Gayle’s. All of these friends have thanked me profusely for my recommendation, and I am certain I will get there one day. Even though I had a tragic (and extremely frustrating) time making one of Gayle’s recipes which ended in tears when the Pyrex baking dish holding a glorious peach-rhubarb pie shattered, her recipes are terrific. Among my favorites is Clafouti, something I can whip up easily with ingredients I always have on hand.

Like many, I have been baking a lot of bread since the pandemic started. But while bread baking can be gratifying, baking a cake or pie or even a crumble is something that never fails to cheer me up. And sometimes just flipping through one of my baking books lifts my spirits. I’d love to hear what baking books you turn to, and what you like to make for yourself and others.