Bake club 101 must-have moves for your kitchen

Simply put, Tosi's Bake Club is designed for fun, from the straightforward, party-like graphics and eye-catching photos to the recipes themselves (think caramel apples, gummy bears, and fudge). The book isn't for elegant gatherings or for those who want to create a showstopper. It is, however, the perfect cookbook to build parties around: gather five basic ingredients--flour, butter, sugar, eggs, and salt--and a few friends, find a clean kitchen, and start the oven! Also, with recipes for everything from marshmallows to caramel, fudge sauce to jam and sprinkles, there is nothing that says build-your-own sundae more than this baking book. And it doesn't end there. In addition to finding the usual sweet suspects (chocolate chip cookies, brownies, and lemon bars), savory bakers can gather round to roll out and nosh on pizza, pretzels, and popovers. This one-size-fits-all offering caters to anyone nostalgic for a whiff of mint chip sammies and will undoubtedly provide a guaranteed infusion of joy into parties, whether they're for kids or adults, families or singles.

A single Instagram post during the 2020 pandemic from Tosi, a James Beard Award winner, cookbook author, and founder and owner of NYC's Milk Bar, led to the creation of the Bake Club newsletter and Instagram sessions. Now Tosi funnels everything she has taught that virtual band of bakers into her latest ingeniously inventive cookbook. After an overview of basic baking ingredients and tools, the book breaks down into chapters such as "DIY Pantry," "Dropoffable, Snacks," and "Fancy Desserts." Recipes themselves range from caramel sauce to English muffins to chocolate mirror cake. Perennial favorites, such as marshmallow treats (with assorted variations) and the classic condensed-milk version of fudge, are included, as well as more Milk Bar-specific recipes, including the one for cinnamon-toast cereal. Baking purists may blanche at some of Tosi's culinary approaches, such as her version of lemon bars, which uses a boxed lemon cake mix in the crust and cream cheese in the filing. But Tosi's easy, breezy writing style and welcoming tone will encourage both baking novices and longtime sweet chefs to give her way a try. VERDICT If, as Tosi believes, baking is a mechanism for magic, then she is a true culinary Houdini.--John Charles