Read: Baking, from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan

In Baking: From My Home to Yours, Dorie Greenspan gives a collection of 230 plus attractive recipes ranging from breakfast sweets, cakes, and tarts to puddings, custards, ice creams and crisps. The book is homey, doable baking but sometimes the recipes are a little too familiar and untidy, like spice cookies, a rough lemon tart and sticky buns. I rather prefer her other books, Baking with Julia and Desserts by Pierre Hermé.

It depends on what kind of baker you are, I suppose. I always imagine that the Texan housewife would have much use for this book, given recipes like "The Perfect Party Cake" or a pound cake or heavy American chocolate fudge cake but I don't always. I do like that the recipe selection is extensive and that she has a good sense of description in her writing. The book has little pretension and fanfare, just good common sense.