More than cake 100 baking recipes built for pleasure and community

Bakers at risk of becoming bored with the same old recipes need look no further! NYC-based Pickowicz earned a following as a pastry chef and baking activist. She has also mastered a cool creativity with her treats, presenting restaurant-quality recipes that are advertised as achievable by amateurs. Don't mistake these luscious bakes as being quick and simple though; her apricot and olive focaccia requires dough fermentation and an advance soak of the fruit in verjus, and terrazzo bread includes homemade candied watermelon rind. Pairings sound unusual but intriguing; imagine the sour tang of homemade kumquat preserves paired with a hazelnut coffee shortbread in a linzer cookie or the salty touch of fried capers on an olive oil-drenched cake. Other thought-provokers include pine nut sablées with taleggio; black sesame, cream cheese, and pineapple layer cake; and sunchoke and apricot tart. Pickowicz's melodic prose makes you want to curl up with her book, a cup of tea, and one of her pecan and black cardamom buns and revel in the originality of such outside-the-box recipes.

Pastry chef and bake-sale boss Pickowicz details her method of creating desserts of all sorts in this informative volume, her first cookbook. Putting people at the forefront, she believes dessert can stimulate community and includes information on supporting causes through fundraising with baked goods. From cookies to savory bakes with vegetables, with an ode to fruit desserts in between, recipes are often multi-step, even multi-day events, resulting in unexpected flavor unions, such as olive-oil cake with crispy capers. A formula for creating layer cakes (cake, soak, filling, then frosting) provides countless possibilities. Step-by-step photos help to explain an unusual process for building layers: Start with a thin sheet cake, which gets cut most often into circles, then swaddled in plastic wrap and stacked inside a tall cake pan. After all the soaking, filling, and layering, the cake is turned out and frosted. Tips, including variations and how to recover from mistakes, are sprinkled throughout the book. VERDICT Best for those who like slow, meditative bakes and unique ingredient combinations.--P.J. Gardiner