Review by Booklist Review
Cake Mix Doctor" Byrn (A New Take on Cake, 2021) offers this pleasurable mix of craveable delights and culinary storytelling. Readers can find a pecan fix in pies, tassies, turtlebacks, and Creole lace cookies, while peach lovers can bake them into pound cakes and sonkers (aka cobblers). With over a dozen biscuit recipes, there's a perfect version for every taste, whether one prefers them light or soft, enriched with sweet potato or local flour, or wants to pair them with honey and butter, fig jam, breakfast sausage and egg, or strawberries and cream. These Southern classics are sure to inspire a day in the kitchen, but the real gift of the book is in its historical details. Byrn explores the origins of some of America's favorite baked goods by profiling the likes of late cooking icon Edna Lewis and her sourdough pancake recipe and former cook and editor Bill Neal and his lemon meringue pie. While baking in the American South was founded on a turbulent and often unsavory history, the individuals--enslaved Africans and their descendents, Creole peoples, Moravians, Jews, and immigrants--and fertile land gave rise to the towering culinary culture Byrn captures here with anecdotes, engaging prose, and passion readers will feel.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Fifth-generation Tennessean Byrn (American Cake) provides an encyclopedia of Southern baked goods in this masterful and extensive collection encompassing the region's sweet and savory offerings, from cracklin' cornbread flecked with pork to bourbon-laced green tomato pie. The recipes, culled from magazines, historical cookbooks, and regional chefs, divide into cornbread and biscuits, quick bakes, griddle cakes and fritters, rolls and yeast-raised cakes, puddings, pies, cakes, and cookies and frostings. No-nonsense tips for delectable yet achievable recipes, each served up with a dollop of culinary history, precede pages of precise instructions for tackling baking challenges. ("The best way to learn to bake biscuits is just to bake them," is Byrn's frank advice.) Standouts include Bellegarde heirloom biscuits sweetened with maple syrup; an indulgent layered Arkansas Possum Pie with a pecan crust; and a clutch of rich pound cakes, including a recipe created by Georgia Gilmore for cakes which were sold to raise funds during the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott. Gorgeous photographs will get mouths watering while vignettes about Southern pantry staples like White Lilly Flour and profiles of lesser-known food personalities like New Orleans chef Lena Richard add welcome context. This is a treasure trove. (Sept.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Known for her bestseller The Cake Mix Doctor, cookbook author, former food editor for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and fifth-generation Southerner Byrn knows a thing or two about baking from scratch as well. In her latest cookbook, Byrn gathers 200 recipes from 14 different states, stretching from Maryland to Texas, and then arranges them in chapters dedicated to cornbread, biscuits, puddings, pies, and cake. The recipes come from sources ranging from department store and school cafeterias to tearooms, historic homes, and houses of worship. The distinguished list of Southern bakers contributing recipes and advice include Edna Lewis (sourdough pancakes), Helen Corbett (Neiman Marcus popovers), Nathalie Dupree (cream biscuits), Lena Richard (apple bread pudding), and Marian Flexner (green tomato pie). Byrn then deftly sifts in several fascinating culinary tales, including the story behind key lime pie. The layout of the recipes themselves is accessible, and each recipe includes a note with details about its history. VERDICT Even with other outstanding guides on the subject, like Kelly Fields's The Good Book of Southern Baking and Cheryl Day's Treasury of Southern Cooking, Byrn's wise, winning, and wonderful doorstop dive into the recipes and stories that make up the heart and soul of Southern baking is essential.--John Charles
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