One of our bookshelves is devoted to the Holy Trinity of Baking and Beyond. Here we put the books of Dorie Greenspan, Rose Levy Beranbaum, and Carole Walter. There are other grand sweet cookbook authors to be sure, and you’ll find them on these pages, but these three are distinguished for multiple reasons.
First, the detail and quality of each of the recipes. They have been researched, tested, honed, retested, and perfected. Pick any recipe, follow the instructions, and you have something wonderful.
Second, the volume of their work: they produce book after book, overwhelming us with pleasure. And calories.
The recipe details are so precise they can seem a little rigid, almost military. I’ve been in the kitchen with all three and I’ve learned to obey. “Oh, no,” Carole once said to me, “not that way.” She wasn’t harsh but she was pretty darn insistent. You knows the way to do something and she knows what will happen if you stray from her path.
The full name for 2007’s Carole’s Great Coffee Cakes is Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins & More. There is more and the more is impressive. Although I normally use TBT for books ten years or older, we have the holiday season upon us. We need great “morning recipes” and there are 200 of them in Coffee Cakes. How many will you want to make? For me, it was about 190. You’ll look at the recipes and you’ll add it up and you, too, will be approaching 200. You want to eat everything.
And why not? There is great baking diversity here. Nine chapters cover a range far and wide beyond “mere” coffee cake:
- Perfect Pound Cakes
- Home-Style Coffee Cakes
- Muffins and Quick Breads
- Biscuits and Scone
- Easy Does It Yeasted Coffee Cakes
- Brioche, Croissants & Danish
- Strudel: Then and Now
- Coffee Break Bites [cookie time!]
- Streusels, Glazes, Frostings & Spread.
Sure, the heart here is coffee cake. You’ll find that classic sour cream coffee cake with a marbled layer of cinnamon and nuts, plus a cinnamon and nut streusel atop it. You’ll also find an Apple Walnut Caramel Kuchen.
Speaking of caramel, Carole offers her favorite Caramel Glaze which can be used in her Caramel-Glazed Blackberry Jam Cake. If you want jam but not cake, you can make the Black Raspberry Jam Squares topped with meringue instead of caramel. Although, you could probably …
Surely winter mornings begin best with a biscuit or muffin. How about Caramelized Rustic Corn Muffins or Cinnamon Pull-Apart Biscuit. Or Country Cherry Honey Scones. To go on top of those you could apply butter or honey but even better is her Maple Pecan Spread made with cream cheese and powdered sugar. For you traditionalists, there is the Old-Fashioned Buttermilk Biscuit and I guess butter and strawberry jam on that would make the day start with equal excellence.
There are cakes — coffee and pound — cookies, bars, biscuits, scones, frostings, glazes and spreads. Some things, like the Maple Pecan Spread, are really easy. Some, like the Maple Oatmeal Meringue Bars, will absorb some time and your attention. All the recipes in Coffee Cakes, whether simple or advanced, will find you sighing in happiness.
Carole’s book is significant for two other reasons. First, it is also history of sweet baking and documents some ideas and techniques that are in danger of being lost. In Strudel: Then and Now she notes that most strudel now is made with phyllo. The original strudel dough, the one that had to be stretched and then immediately filled, that dough and that technique are being pushed aside in a busy world. But Carole suggests that you try the real thing.
Second, Carole is never afraid to suggest yeast. If I say “yeast” to my wife, Suzi’s response is always, “I’ll do it.” I once had a minor, well major, yeast disaster in the kitchen. It’s not that Suzi bears grudges, but I’m sort of on permanent house arrest when it comes to touching the yeast jars. The chapter Easy Does It Yeasted Coffee Cakes may have you permanently banishing baking soda and powder. You achieve a true dough here, not something cakey, and the results, like the Dried Plum Tea Ring, attain a higher level of sophistication.
To have success here, just read and follow the recipe. If you think about deviating, well think again. Imagine Carole standing over your shoulder. Imagine her saying, “Oh, no.” You’ll never stray again.
Suzi and I are visiting our daughter for Christmas. I’m printing out a stack recipes to try, both savory and sweet. I have a separate folder for ideas from Carole. It’s going to be a White and Walter Christmas.