Now is the time of year when, although the days are getting longer, they are still short and cold. If not frigid and snowy. That gives us some extra time to doddle in the kitchen, fashioning comfort food or, even better, constructing a world class cake. And here we have a book from 2014 that is just that: world class.
Roger Pizey is a renowned British baker and patissier. Three decades in top restaurants and on television food shows have made him an unsurpassed cake expert.
His latest book, World Class Cakes, is filled with both the comfortably familiar and the intriguing new. Here you’ll find a terrific perfected recipe for Boston Cream Pie, but also a Pistachio and Lemon Cake that is Roger’s tribute to Turkey. I blogged that particular recipe yesterday and it is pictured at the top of this post. The cake is incredibly lovely to your eye and to your palette.
There are more specials from the Middle East and very fun treats from Scandinavia and other ideas from around the world:
- Sticky Date Cake with Caramel Sea Salt Sauce [from an Australian living in Singapore]
- Cassava Cake [Philippines]
- Hummingbird Cake [Southern US}
- Yogurt Cake [Turkey, Roger is fond of Turkey!]
- Rhubarb Crumble Cake [Great Britain]
- Dundee Cake [Scotland]
- Apple and Cinnamon Damper [Australia]
- Mandarin, Polenta and Macadamia Cake [Italy]
- Cardamom Coffee Cake [Scandinavia]
- Kueh Lapis [Indonesia, a thousand layers of spicy flavor!]
- Fiadone [Corsican cheesecake]
- Sfenz [Middle Eastern doughnuts]
- Sonhos [airy puffs from Portugal]
I could list just about every cake in the book here. I’ve selected a sample because maybe, just maybe, when you read one of these names or say it out loud, your memory will be jogged. Perhaps as a child, your mother or aunt or grandmother served one of these. If you did grow up with ethnic cakes, and the recipe is lost, then here is the best place to search for your long loved treasure.
And, if you don’t have something missing, but you love cake, then World Class Cakes is literally a world tour of the best baking you can imagine. You’ll enjoy traveling around the planet as you turn the pages. And, there is no reason for you not to stop off in, say, Corsica and sample the local cheesecake.
Oh, you don’t bake. Ever? Do you eat cake? Because buried inside are notes on the best places to eat cake in a half dozen key places: Paris, Tokyo, … And, thankfully, New York City. I will admit to being familiar with all the Manhattan places in this book, including some just minutes from my doorstep. There are, however, places in Brooklyn and Queens for me to visit.
World Class Cake is a world class book.
Photo Information [top picture]: Canon T2i, EFS 60 mm Macro Lens, F/4.5 for 1/6th second at ISO-3200