All Cakes Considered

I’ve made the first cake from this book and I’m pretty happy with it overall! FYI for anyone considering buying, you may as well order a 10-inch tube pan at the same time since it’s used for the first few recipes at least (Cooks Illustrated recommends Chicago Metallic brand).Things I don’t like:- The ingredients are NOT measured by weight, so I have to break out my kitchen converter app- The pound cake recipe I made (first one in the book) used orange and lemon extract instead of fresh juice or zest. For fun I looked up the pound cake in my Cooks Illustrated Baking Book to compare, and it had a technique for processing lemon zest with the sugar that would have been cool to use. I used a lemon glaze from that book to glaze my pound cake since I had fresh lemon)- Also I noticed one typo early on that put me off a little bit :( otherwise seems well edited.Things I do like:- The book is focused on recipes and not decorating- Good, readable breakdowns and explanations of all techniques- Cute stories and backgrounds of every recipe- Easy-to-difficult organization

I've been baking a lot of the recipes from this book and find that the quality and dependability of the recipes are uneven, but when they are good, they are great. The technique described in the earliest recipes is brilliant, and has made a major difference in the way I bake cakes. Room-temperature butter and eggs -- beating the butter until it is light and fluffy before adding the sugar -- adding the dry ingredients alternately with the liquid -- these are all steps that I've seen in cookbooks over these many decades that I've been baking, but this book tells you why, and gives you the recipes to practice on. I've made a fair proportion of the recipes in this book, and have generally been pleased with the results. None of them are, as written, best in class, but some can become so with a few changes (why use any water at all in the butter rum cake -- use all rum!). I admit that we don't buy cookbooks so we can figure out how to improve the recipes in them, but this one does give one a lot of information that is useful. Most valuable tip I've had in 40 years of baking -- use Baker's Joy to grease and flour pans. It makes Bundt pan preparation and release of the cake a snap. Once I bought the Baker's Joy, I became a Bundt pan addict and bought 7 or 8 delightful designs of them to make my cakes beautiful and fun. I'm not bothered by a lot of the complaints that people have mentioned here -- they are valid complaints but I'm experienced enough as a baker to avoid the pitfalls mentioned. But I agree that there should have been better editing and that the book could be improved on. I'm looking forward to the second edition to fix the problems!

I was really drawn to this cake cookbook. As an avid, experienced home baker, I found it thoughtful, beautiful and full of intriguing recipes. I have made several cakes so far and have a few issues. First, 8" and 9" pans really are not completely inter-changable. I made her German's Chocolate Cake recipe with disappointing results. It turns out that the cake portion follows the recipe on the back of the Baker's German's chocolate box. The box recommends using 3 9" pans. I should have followed this. I used 2 8" pans with nearly overflowing, deflated results. Not too big of a deal, but note worthy. The biggest challenge came with the pecan coconut filling. Really vague directions, "stir til thickened," -- how thick, how long? My end result, after putting it in the freezer to thicken, was a runny mess. I hope the cake is not soggy. Bummer. Also the Key Lime Cake. This was delicious but called for 1/2 cup of key lime juice, which she claims is about 4 limes. 4 limes yielded me about 1 Tbsp of juice. And the Black Walnut Cake -- who knew black walnuts would be so hard to find? OK, enough ranting ... just be careful and take this book with a grain of salt.

This cookbook is more than a collection of recipes; it is a good read to boot. The book is beautifully done, large color pictures of the selected cakes. Directions have been edited for easier baking; instructions often include the rationale for doing the procedure as instructed. The book begins with a lot of basic cake-baking information, from pans to ingredients. A person could know absolutely nothing about baking and still be a successful baker following these directions. The book is rich with baking folklore, and anecdotal background about the specific cakes selected for inclusion in the book. Melissa Gray, known around NPR as the "cake lady", has crafted a cookbook which reads like a novel. Woven into the narrative are snippets of her experiences at NPR. The people she mentions are familiar names to fans of the NPR broadcasts. It's the first cookbook that made me want to read it from front to back, rather than skim through the index of recipes. I've baked all my life, and still learned a lot about baking cakes that I had never heard before. I bought it for a gift, but have ordered another copy, since I don't think I can let this one go. Perfect gift for a newlywed.

You're going to want to read this book cover to cover! Although it's a "period" piece with its colloquial language, that makes it even more fun. Melissa Gray of NPR baked a different cake every week to take to the NPR staff. She used family recipes, as well as recipes from church cookbooks and even out-of-print cookbooks. Ms. Gray also wrote about the chemistry of cake baking and included useful information about ingredients, equipment, and utensils. Personally, I enjoyed the book because it was so much fun--reading about the reactions of her tasters and their personal preferences, learning about the personalities of the NPR staff, and hearing her tell family stories. Bravo to Melissa Gray for her writing, as well as baking, skills!

This book is very funny. American humor at its best.

I made a resolution not to buy any cookbooks in 2010 (apart from those bought on holiday abroad) and this was the last one I bought on New Years eve 2009.It's a great American cake book. Not too difficult in the recipes it puts forward so don't look at this if you want something challenging. The measurements are in cup measures and there isn't a major requirement for hard to get American ingredients either.The majority (i.e. almost all) the recipes are for mass feeding. Big cakes for feeding the office which is where she started all this (personally I've always found brownies simpler to feed multiples.) If you have a Bundt tin, I'd strongly recommend this. If you like reading the story bit around the cake, the writing is quite nice too.

Muy buena presentación, contenido extenso y muy bien ilustrado. Explica perfectamente cómo realizar cada uno de los "Cakes" típicos ingleses.Muy recomendable

No sólo son recetas. Resulta divertido leerlo y las explicaciones son sumamente sencillas y cargadas de humos en todo momento

Some lovely recipes, but nowhere in the sales listing does it mention that it's only in American cup and ounce measures.So not very convenient for British bakers.