[.ca] Baking in America: Traditional and Contemporary ... (ISBN 0618048316)

From Amazon.com:
Greg Patent, recognizing that many of America's worthiest breads, cakes, and other sweets have disappeared over time, retrieves them in perfected, easy-to-follow form, while also providing a selection of contemporary favorites, in his book Baking in America. From the first American cookbook, American Cookery, published in 1776, to and beyond the works of influential American cookbook writers including Eliza Leslie, Amelia Simmons, and Fannie Farmer, the book serves up such temptations as Mrs. Goodfellow's Dover Cake (a fine-grained, rice flour-based pound cake); Cornell White Bread (an exemplary sandwich loaf developed at Cornell University); and Chocolate and Gold Ribbon Cake (a Pillsbury Bake-Off prize winner). Among the newer delights are Ricotta Cheesecake with Blueberry Sauce, Spicy Icebox Oatmeal Crisps, and Rhubarb Raspberry Crunch Bars. Building upon often-sketchy formulas, Patent has seamlessly bridged past and present to produce a unique collection. The book's organization--chapters cover topics from savory yeast breads and sweet yeast breads and doughnuts to pound cakes, layer cakes, cheesecakes, fruit desserts, and more--gives some idea of the arc of American baking, which has changed as kitchen technology has advanced. (The arrival of yeast-displacing chemical leaveners, for example, made the layer cake possible.) But American bakers have always been avid experimenters, Patent maintains, and have produced singular delights like Jalapeño, Cornmeal, and Cheddar Bread; Golden Pumpkin Loaf; Persimmon Cream Cheese Cupcakes; and, of course, brownies, for which the book gives variations including White Chocolate Chunk. With amusing advice from old cookbooks and other historical asides, profiles of cooking teachers, and useful glossaries of ingredients and equipment, the photo-illustrated book makes the re-creation of our charmingly homey baking past practical for modern cooks. --Arthur Boehm

This is Classic American Cooking:
Whoever wrote the review that said "Whose America?", must not have read the book thoughly. These realy are classic American recipes with interesting backgrounds. The introduction to each chapter is filled with interesting things you probably never knew about American history and most recipes explain how they are tied to American. Recipes include: Peaches and Cream Cobbler, Emily Dickenson's Black Cake, Honeyed Apple Torte, Kentucky Stack Cake, Chocolate Chestnut Torte, Ameretto-Amaretti Cheesecake, Maple Pecan Tart, and Buttercrunch Lemon Bars, to name a few of the recipes. And I have tried a recipe, the Lemon Genoise w/ White Chocolate Buttercream and Raspberries and it was AMAZING!!! I loved it, and so did our guests! I have checked this book out of the library about 4 times and just bought it from Amazon. Tonight I plan on making ladyfingers from the book for tomorrow's tiramasu (the tiramasu recipe is not from this book but from The Barefoot Contessa Family Style, which I also love just as much.)

I love this book.:
I really enjoyed reading this cookbook. I learned so much about the history of American baking, the ingredients that were and are used in baking, and about the origins of some of the foods that I bake for my family. I read it cover to cover, like a history book, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Then I started baking from it. The first thing I tried was the honey apple torte, and it was one of the best baked goods I have ever made or tasted. It disappeared in a day--my family couldn't stop eating it. And it is a beautiful cake, too. I am looking forward to baking it for company. Next I tried the lemon sour cream pound cake, and that too was exquisite. I can't wait to try some of the other recipes. I found the recipes very original, and there were many that I haven't seen in other cookbooks. I also enjoyed reading the introductions to each recipe, which give history of the recipe or the ingredients contained in it. After reading (and baking from) this book, I feel like I have a better understanding of American culinary history. This was a very enjoyable cookbook. Thank you, Greg Patent.

Great 'history story' but mediocre recipes.:
Greg Patent does a wonderful job giving cute history tidbits and including a wide range of recipes. However, I personally think the recipes are bland and could use a little work. The Black-Eyed Susans needed a chocolate icing to counter the 'plain' peanut butter cupcake (even with a Reese's cup inside!). A couple of the cakes I tried were okay; but I expect MUCH more than 'okay' from a cookbook with a list price of $.... For the cookies in the book, just skip that section and go with Betty Crocker's cookie book :) It is a cute book, but the recipes could definitely use some livening up! Go with "Baking By Flavor," by Lisa Yockelson. You won't be disappointed!

Faking in America:
This baking book was disappointing. It represents itself as a survey of 200 years of baking in American kitchens. In the end, the result is a rather ordinary collection of baking and pastry recipes. This collection is supposed to be a collage of 200 years of baking recipes. The book has numerous references to old, out of print recipe books. Then, the author takes these recipes and updates it for the modern kitchen and grocery store. In the bread chapter, for example, all of the dough make-up procedures are virtually identical. This is suspicious, as the sources, hydration percentages, and ingredients for the bread recipes go all over the place. I suspect that the author here has cheated a bit. Also, the procedures do not have very extensive descriptions of how to form the doughs into loaves. Some of the instructions for preparing the various fruits are either incomplete or wrong, as are procedures for cooking sugar into syrups, caramels, etc. I like the fact that the procedures (for the most part) are very detailed, and many of the little steps that are often overlooked are thorough described here. The recipes often have as many as a dozen steps. The beginning of each chapter has some baking tips and hints, although they are far from complete. At the head of each chapter is a list of recipes, which is very convenient when you are looking for something specific. The most valuable part of this book is the bibliography, which lists many historic cookbooks, many of which are still available in facsimile editions. Very valuable, and hard to find, are the dozen or so recipes for doughnuts; these alone are almost worth the price of admission. On the other hand, many chapters are collections of fairly standard recipes that you can find in almost any all purpose cookbook. The one about pies, for example, is very ordinary and commonplace, most of them currently popular ones, and not historic nor heritage in any sense of the word. It is a very decent collection of baking recipes that covers most of the major areas of baking, but it is not as advertised.

Big Bulky Book, few Pictures:
I recently received a copy of "Baking in America" and for such a LARGE book, I found the design extremely poor. The first 37 pages are NOT recipes but definitions. Some of which I felt needed no definition. Do we really need a full paragraph description of "Granulated sugar" or "Honey?" I mean, come on. this stuff belongs in a cooking theory book, or at least in the a section at the back, but not in the first pages... Once we get to the recipe section, few recipes really caught my attention. I also HATE HATE HATE the cheap publishing trick of putting the photographs of only some of the dishes in the center. This makes work for the cook as he/she looks at the picture then must search out the recipe and who wants to do this? I prefer photos and illustrations to be next to the recipes so the cook can see what the finished product might look like. I also felt the recipes were poorly indexed and seemed to span several pages apiece. For a book this size I expected thousands of recipes instead of the measly few included. Overall: A big beefy book, without a lot of recipes or contents useful to the experienced cook. Beginners might appreciate the length Patent goes to describe basic cooking principals. Lack of photos and poor design did not appeal to this reader.