Last week I wrote a post about the savoury recipe books I like on my bookshelf. This week it is all about sweet!
Adventures with Chocolate
Before I bought this book I had not heard of Paul A Young. I came across the book when a bookshop in my home town was closing down, I was browsing the books and picked this one up. The phorographs instantly had me attached to it. I normally like quite light photographs which is what I aim for with Lucya Bakes. However the photos in this book are quite dark, it really gives the book a luxurious feel. The recipes are mainly sweet as you would expect but there are a few savoury ones such as chocolate chilli chicken and honey cured bacon, stilton and chocolate sandwich. The recipes I have tried from this book always turn out well.
Paul A Young has several chocolate shops in London and are definitely worth checking out. He makes the BEST brownies!
The Cake Book
This book is part of Jamie Oliver’s FoodTube and is written by Cupcake Jemma (she has her own youtube channel too). For such a small book it has some great ideas and unusual flavour combinations. The eton mess cupcakes are delicious!
Jemma has just opened a bakery called Crumbs and Dollies in London which I would love to check out.
Sweet Tooth
This was another Amazon bargain! I think I picked it up for £2 in the used section, it came with some bookshelf damage but for £2 I didn’t mind! The thing I love about this book is that is explains why you use certain ingredients and how it effects the bake and what to do if you don’t have a certain type of sugar, for example. Her cakes are quite natural looking, lots of berries, nuts and flowers. There are also two good little sections about working with chocolate and sugar.
The Boy Who Bakes
There are two recipes in this book which I have used multiple times and have always been a massive success. The orange and passion fruit cake and Nanna’ gingerbread. They are both delicious! There are quite a few other recipes in here which I would like to try (and to be honest I am not sure why I haven’t!) so I will definitely use this book again!
Perfecting Patisserie
This book is written by Dr. Tim Kinnaird, he was a runner up in Masterchef 2010. Since then Tim Kinnaird has opened a shop called Macarons & More in my home town of Norwich. I am fairly sure I have mentioned this shop before, it is my favourite shop in Norwich! Tim’s shop produces some of the best macarons I have ever tasted, my personal favourite is milk chocolate and passionfruit, also the staff are always very friendly!
When Tim released his first recipe book “Perfecting Patisserie” I was fairly quick at purchasing a copy and I am so pleased to say that is doesn’t dissapoint! This book contains a wide range of recipes from macarons and eclairs, tart and biscuits to gateaux and entrements. The thing that makes this book stand out for me are the trouble shooting pages at the end of each section. For example, at the end of the macaron section there are five pictures of failed macarons each explaining why your macaron turned out like this and what you can do to prevent it from happening next time.
Bread, Cake, Doughnut, Pudding
I purchased this book from Amazon becuase of the good reviews it had and I had also seen quite a few well known bakers speaking quite highly of this book. I have probably had this book less than 6 months but have already made quite a few recipes from it. All of the recipes I have tried have turned out well including; bread rolls which were made for William and Kate’s wedding, we make these quite regularly! I have also made butter fingers and chocolate mousse cake. There is also a croquembouche recipe which I would love to try! I also just love the style of this book too, it is very clean and simple, white pages with a smart font and beautiful pictures. Also the doughnuts look incredible! Who could say no to a doughnut with caramel custard and salted honeycomb sprinkle!
Patisserie Maison
I have learnt quite a lot about bread from Richard Bertinet, his method on making loaves is quite different to the usual English method and means you can make a bread with a higher hydration. Here is a really useful video he did for Waitrose TV.
The best recipes I have made from this book were raspberry biscuits and mini doughnuts. My sister and I made the mini doughnuts for my family. None of them really like doughnuts so I don’t know why we made them! But we served them with homemade chocolate sauce, salted caramel and creme legere… they went very quickly!
This book also has a lovely festive section; croque en bouche, buche de Noel, Christmas cake and Christmas pudding. There are so many recipes that I want to try in this book so I will definitely use it again!
Life is Sweet and Lucy Bakes
These two are my newest cookbooks which were presents for my birthday. I haven’t had a chance to try any of the recipes out yet but from having a quick flick through, they both look like they have some great ideas in. I am also waiting for another book to be delivered. When I have had a chance to read them I may write a seperate post about them!
I have found writing this post and going through my cookbooks has made my realise how many recipes I haven’t got round to making yet! So I will definitely be revisiting a lot of these books!
I hope you have enjoyed these slightly different posts and if you would like more things like this then please let me know.
On Thursday I have a post about cinnamon swirls!
Lucya xx
Lucya Bakes 