Anything by Rose Levy Beranbaum deserves our attention. Her previous eleven cookbooks — like The Cake Bible, The Bread Bible, and Rose’s Christmas Cookies — have brought many of us countless bites to treasure.
If you have ever used a Rose book, you know that she fills each recipe with maximum information. They can be several pages long and dense with text. It took me a while, but I learned to be patient, to read all the pages, and to follow her wording exactly.
Now, a picture can be worth 1000 words, or at least several hundred. In this book, Rose goes modern. Very modern. There are 100 recipes here and 600 pictures. Fewer words but oh-so helpful pictures. This is the easiest Rose book to follow. There has been, though, absolutely no compromise: this book is delicious.
Here are some of the ideas you will find here. Some are classic recipes from her, some are new, and all are reworded for simplicity and clarity.
Rose’s Chocolate Chip Cookies with browned butter and corn syrup for extra flavor and moistness
Best Brownies made with chocolate, cocoa, and naturally cream cheese
Chocolate Butterscotch Toffee with nine photographs to guide you to toffee nirvana
Cream Cheese Crunch Pound Cake with a base of graham crackers and pecans
Glazed Mocha Chiffon Cake with espresso powder in the cake and Kahlua in the mocha glaze
Perfect Flaky and Tender Cream Cheese Pie Cake, Rose’s favorite pie crust
Glazed Strawberry Pie with a cran-raspberry juice filling
Milk Chocolate Caramel Tart, a rich combination of two most popular flavors
Beer Bread made with porter or Guinness stout for real British flavor
Babka Swirl Loaf filled with cinnamon and sugar
Peanut Butter Cream Cheese frosting for anything [but maybe Rose’s Best Brownies?]
This is the book from Rose we have always wanted. It will win awards, be a classic, and you can ride the wave right from the starts. Baking Basics goes on sale September 25 but you can preorder now. And you can preshop at the store, too! You know: eggs, butter, sugar, eggs, chocolates … This book has 100 recipes, so buy lots. You’ll need them all.
I was super excited to get this cookbook with the intention of trying every recipe. Last night I made the first one in the book: oatmeal cookies. I made it exactly as instructed. My family’s reaction? “tastes weird”, “not very sweet”. They were right. I am wondering why the recipe only calls for a half cup of sugar (dark brown sugar). Was she thinking that the raisins and chocolate chips were enough sweetness? They weren’t. Am I off here? This recipe absolutely did not work for us. I only use cookbooks if I am highly confident of a good outcome. Now I am wondering what other failures lie ahead as I bake on through this book.
I’m sorry you had a bad experience. My first tries at Rose’s recipes were failures. I don’t know what I was doing wrong, but I finally found them to work. Here the issue may be flavor preference. She’s not heavy on sugar and I suspect you are right: the raisins and chips were going to add sweetness. You can try again, upping the sugar to say 3/4 cup. It’s baking science but tasting art.