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Welcome to “Cookbook of the Week.” This is a series where I highlight cookbooks that are unique, easy to use, or just special to me. While finding a particular recipe online serves a quick purpose, flipping through a truly excellent cookbook has a magic all its own.
I think we can all agree that one of the best ways to get recommendations is by word-of-mouth. After all, that’s kind of what we’re doing here, right? Well, I chose this week’s cookbook based on a suggestion from Claire Lower, formerly Lifehacker’s longtime food writer and editor, and my once-partner in food hacks. We still manage to find time to talk about cleavers and cakes, and as luck would have it, cookbooks. This week, I’m happy to share Milk Street Bakes with you.
I’d really like to skip ahead to what I cooked from the book, but I’ll be patient. I can tell you this little tidbit now: Even if you’re not in the mood to bake, there are some delicious things in the book that don’t go in the oven at all (like the flaky flatbread I made).
A bit about the book
Milk Street Bakes just dropped this week and comes from Christopher Kimball, the creator of 177 Milk Street and one of the founders of America’s Test Kitchen. When I think of ATK and their cookbook (which I also love), I’m reminded of how thorough and encompassing their work is. While Kimball and ATK are different entities now, the inklings of the connection are clear when flipping through the pages of Milk Street Bakes. It feels like a resource you can reach for again and again when you need a reliable recipe.
This cookbook has 200 of 'em, from breads and muffins to cakes, pizzas, and cookies. One of the special features of this collection is that many of the recipes are sourced directly from bakers from around the world, or inspired by them. Each recipe includes lovely, detailed, close-up photographs of the dishes. Any recipe that initially might feel intimidating due to weaving or folding will undoubtedly include a grid of step-by-step photographs so you can feel confident going into the process.
A great cookbook for adventurous bakers
While the ingredient lists are generally manageable, even rather short sometimes, I would not consider this a cookbook for the beginner. Rather, it would be a fun companion for the adventurous, risk-taking baker who is interested in developing technique, expanding their palate with a variety of flavors, and learning about delectable bakes from other countries—sweet and savory.
This cookbook doesn’t just provide a handful of go-tos with the rest of the pages filling the space with “meh.” Milk Street Bakes entices you with a must-bake gem for today, and an irresistible list of what you need to bake next. I’ve only had this cookbook for a month and there are as many bookmarks in it as there are in some of my oldest book companions.
There are quite a few bread recipes in Milk Street Bakes, which I appreciate. I’ve often seen bread recipes completely omitted, in cookbooks all on their own, or bread recipes are added sparingly so as to not scare anyone away with all that yeast and proofing. The meat-filled carbs, layered flatbreads, toppings-studded pizzas, and seeded rolls are abundant and well-explained in Milk Street Bakes. And that tracks because if there’s one thing that connects the varying cuisines of this world, it’s bread.
The recipes you can expect
As I mentioned, the recipes span different baked goods from around the globe, but that includes the fondly familiar as well. You can expect buttermilk scones, drop biscuits, and banana bread, but there’s always a twist: Inspiration from another place or a combination of surprising flavors that revive worn-out classics—a bit of cardamom here, a splash of brandy or tahini there.
Kimball presents you a collection of manageable recipes that include a balanced mixture of origin, anecdotes, instruction, and tips. I will always be Team Photos when it comes to cookbooks and there is no missed opportunity here. If you’re not sure how the olive bread should be swirled, check the next page. You’ll be left with no doubt of how the finished product should look if you followed the recipe.
Each recipe includes an ingredient list, headnote, and steps. Just before the steps begin, there’s always an important tip, such as, "don’t forget to sift the dry ingredients." At times, the instruction can get a bit lengthy—each step is often a multi-sentence paragraph—but that’s because the directions are specific, detailing how to alternate ingredients, or descriptions on what to look for so you can proceed to the next step. A technique-focused baker who likes to get things right the first time will love this style of instruction. A newcomer to baking may find it stifling, while the restless cook will likely rush on and miss things.
The dishes I chose this week
I had a great time picking my recipe this week, so much so that I actually made two: Turkish-Style Flaky Flatbreads and the French Apple Cake. The cake is what I settled on first, but I wanted some bread to eat with my lentils one night, so I actually made the flatbread first.
The Turkish-style flatbread recipe lays out everything in the headnote, it’s an unleavened flatbread with delicate layers built from folding in swipes of the melted butter and oil mixture, and you griddle it up on a cast iron skillet. That’s absolutely my idea of delicious. The only thing I had to be aware of, according to the tip before the instructions, was the resting time. Like many breads, the ingredient list was short—using all purpose flour keeps the dough from becoming too chewy with gluten, and a little salt for flavor. The rest of the recipe was water, and butter and oil for my melted fat mixture.
My flatbreads bubbled and browned in my skillet, taking mere minutes to complete each one. I tore into a round quickly thereafter and it was everything I was looking forward to—a crisp, charred, flaky crust that gave way to stretchy ribbons of buttery bread inside.
The French Apple Cake is bookmarked for me forever. There is almost not as much to say about it because it was a delight that went exactly as the recipe said it would. I did pick this one with hesitation. The picture looked great, but I’m usually not an apple cake fan because I find that most cakes leave the apples raw in the mix and they bake into steamy, slime pockets and the apples fall out. But when I read the directions and saw that the apples get cooked down in butter first—which is something I’ve always recommended to others—I knew Milk Street Bakes and I recognized each other.
The hardest part of this recipe is peeling nearly three pounds of apples, but it’s easily worth it for the gift of slicing into this comforting cake. The actual cake batter is made of a few basic ingredients and is surprisingly scant. I wouldn’t have guessed how little of it is used, but it ends up being just the lightest buffer to separate and showcase the real star, the buttery, brandy anointed apples. Delicately flavored and superbly apple, I enjoyed this cake with coffee for three mornings in a row and then froze the other half of the cake so I could relive the experience again this weekend. The recipe doesn’t indicate that you can do that, but we’ll see how it goes.
How to buy it
Milk Street Bakes is available at a discount directly from the Milk Street Store. It’s also on Amazon’s kindle for $19.99, which is great for saving paper, but I suggest the physical hardcover if you’re buying a gift or you're a real cookbook-head.
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