If you move the decimal over. This is about 1,000 in books...

(If I had to pick a few for 100 bucks: encyclopedia of country living, survival medicine, wilderness medicine, ball preservation, art of fermentation, a few mushroom and foraging books.)


Medical:

Where there is no doctor

Where there is no dentist

Emergency War Surgery

The survival medicine handbook

Auerbach’s Wilderness Medicine

Special Operations Medical Handbook

Food Production

Mini Farming

encyclopedia of country living

square foot gardening

Seed Saving

Storey’s Raising Rabbits

Meat Rabbits

Aquaponics Gardening: Step By Step

Storey’s Chicken Book

Storey Dairy Goat

Storey Meat Goat

Storey Ducks

Storey’s Bees

Beekeepers Bible

bio-integrated farm

soil and water engineering

Organic Mushroom Farming and Mycoremediation

Food Preservation and Cooking

Steve Rinella’s Large Game Processing

Steve Rinella’s Small Game

Ball Home Preservation

Charcuterie

Root Cellaring

Art of Natural Cheesemaking

Mastering Artesian Cheese Making

American Farmstead Cheesemaking

Joe Beef: Surviving Apocalypse

Wild Fermentation

Art of Fermentation

Nose to Tail

Artisan Sourdough

Designing Great Beers

The Joy of Home Distilling

Foraging

Southeast Foraging

Boletes

Mushrooms of Carolinas

Mushrooms of Southeastern United States

Mushrooms of the Gulf Coast


Tech

farm and workshop Welding

ultimate guide: plumbing

ultimate guide: wiring

ultimate guide: home repair

off grid solar

Woodworking

Timberframe Construction

Basic Lathework

How to Run A Lathe

Backyard Foundry

Sand Casting

Practical Casting

The Complete Metalsmith

Gears and Cutting Gears

Hardening Tempering and Heat Treatment

Machinery’s Handbook

How to Diagnose and Fix Everything Electronic

Electronics For Inventors

Basic Science


Chemistry

Organic Chem

Understanding Basic Chemistry Through Problem Solving

Ham Radio

AARL Antenna Book

General Class Manual

Tech Class Manual


MISC

Ray Mears Essential Bushcraft

Contact!

Nuclear War Survival Skills

The Knowledge: How to rebuild civilization in the aftermath of a cataclysm

(Edited for Clarity)

She didn't come up with all the ideas for these. The egg cupcakes are stolen from the book "What's New, Cupcake?" by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson. While she did make them herself, she certainly wasn't the first.

Source: http://www.amazon.com/Whats-New-Cupcake-Ingeniously-Occasion/dp/054724181X

I managed a puff!

Recipe from [this book](Artisan Sourdough Made Simple: A Beginner's Guide to Delicious Handcrafted Bread with Minimal Kneading https://www.amazon.com/dp/1624144292/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_bhHzCbP2XEMJ1).

100g starter (fed and bubbly)
180g warm water
7g honey
15g olive oil
150g AP Flour
120g Whole Wheat Flour
3g salt

Mix dough, rest 30 min, work into a smooth ball.

Bulk rise for 6-8 hours.

Shape into 8 balls, and rest for 1 hour. Preheat oven to 450° with a baking stone on the bottom shelf.

Roll to 1/4" thick. Bake 3-4 mins. Look at that puff.

If you haven't checked it out yet, America's Test Kitchen's GF cookbook is just amazing. My mom can't have gluten either (or dairy), and the gastroenterologist recommended this book. Their recipe for a GF flour is a perfect (imo) substitute for all-purpose flour for like, everything. :)

I don't know of any "brands" of sourdough starter. It's ridiculously easy to make your own. Mix water and flour together and tend to it. Eventually you'll have a wild yeast colony you can maintain.

If your starter is sour, it means that the yeast are starving. You do not really want your starter to be super sour. That said, it's not the starter's sourness that determines the sourness of the bread. You need to allow your bread the time to ferment. This is where it's going to develop its dynamic and characteristic flavors.

If you're interested in sourdough baking at home, I would recommend reading Nancy Silverton's Breads from La Brea Bakery

Thank you. The bread is from Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes/day

Essentially you mix up a large batch of dough (water, yeast, salt, flour), let it rise at room temperature, then put the container in the fridge. When you want bread, you pull of a chunk, shape it, let it rise some more, then bake. The brilliance is that you put in some effort up front, but then the daily labor is literally 5 minutes, although the time between deciding you want bread, and the bread coming out of the oven is several hours. The actual work is just a few minutes and you feel like a pro, like you really got your life dialed in. No special tools, but a pizza peel really helps. The instructions cover about four pages in the book, but once you "get it", you just won't need them. And you don't need to knead the dough at all. The bread is really very very good bread. Amazon has the original version of the book from several used book sellers for under $8 including shipping. Worth every penny because it describes how to make modest adjustments to get substantially different types of bread (ciabatta, flat breads, pizza, peasant loaves, and heartier loaves with varied flours). I would bet the library has a copy, too, so free to borrow.

​

I realized I didn't say what the vinegar was for ... it's to make poor girl pickles - just salt, sugar, and vinegar plus whatever chunks of vegetables you have (cucumber, carrots, cabbage), in a jar, in the fridge. Not super exciting unless you add some spices, but you can do things like cut very fine shreds of cabbage or carrots and then do a quick soak in vinegar with sugar and salt, then use it as a small garnish on tacos or in a sandwich to really kick up the flavor for pennies and just a few minutes of effort.

I am fortunate to have a teenage son who will take long walks with me and humor me on meal planning. I've driven all over my state and it has soooo many tiny towns really far from anywhere, and often the only source of food is a convenience store, sometimes a Walgreen's. Prices are obviously a lot higher, but the question became, or the problem to solve became ... if this was your only source for groceries, what would you buy, in what order, and why, and then what do you cook, particularly if you really don't know how and are starting with the bare essentials. Even the worst small gas station stores almost always have limes and bananas, plus dry rice and beans, pasta and sauce, and eggs and cheese in the refrigerated section. Many have a few onions, tortillas, cilantro and jalapenos and maybe a few ratty tomatoes. So that became the beginning of the training/planning, especially since my older daughter says literally NO ONE she knows (except herself) in their 20s can cook, and they are miserable and broke and super stressed out about it. Just really struggling to pull their food together.

American Pie, by Peter Reinhart. Half book, half recipes, and no one knows bread like Peter.

Egg: A Culinary Exploration of the World's Most Versatile Ingredient

I also prefer Google Play Books, but it's been the same price Kindle for awhile now.

You can improve the flavor and crumb by employing a pre-ferment. The best books I've encountered that discuss the different types of pre-ferment are:

Bread Baker's Apprentice by Reinhart.

Bread by Hamelman.

Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast by Forkish.

Tartine Bread by Robertson.

Also, definitely watch the NYT No-Knead Bread video.

This is going to be the opposite of what you want to hear. But, you asked for it and I respect that. I think that there's no substitute for going about this old school and traditionally. The good news is that you can mostly do this for yourself, by yourself.

If you're disinclined (due to time or for another reason) to enroll in a culinary program get yourself either The Professional Chef or Martha Stewart's Cooking School

I know what you're thinking, "Martha Stewart? What am I? A housewife from Iowa?" Fuck that. I've been fortunate to have met and worked with Martha Stewart she's smart enough to know what she doesn't know and that particular book was actually written by a CIA alum and very closely follows the first year or so that you'd get in a program like that. It starts with knife work and then moves on to stocks and sauces. This particular book has actually been criticized as being too advance for people who have no idea what they're doing so, despite appearances, it may be perfect for you. If you want to feel more pro and go a little deeper, get the CIA text but know that it's more or less the same info and frankly, the pictures in the MSO book are really great. Plus, it looks like Amazon has them used for $6 bucks.

These resources will show you HOW to do what you want and they follow a specific, traditional track for a reason. Each thing that you learn builds on the next. You learn how to use your knife. Then, you practice your knife work while you make stocks. Then, you start to learn sauces in which to use your stocks. Etc. Etc. Etc. Almost like building flavors... It's all part of the discipline and you'll take that attention to detail into the kitchen with you and THAT'S what makes great food.

Then, get either Culinary Artistry or The Flavor Bible (Both by Page and Dornenburg. Also consider Ruhlman's Ratio (a colleague of mine won "Chopped" because she memorized all the dessert ratios in that book) and Segnit's Flavor Thesaurus. These will give you the "where" on building flavors and help you to start to express yourself creatively as you start to get your mechanics and fundamentals down.

Now, I know you want the fancy science stuff so that you can throw around smarty pants things about pH and phase transitions and heat transfer. So...go get Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking THAT is the bible. When the people who run the Ferran Adria class at Harvard have a question, it's not Myhrvold that they call up, it's Harold McGee. While Modernist Cuisine always has a long, exciting complicated solution to a problem I didn't even know I had, when I really want to know what the fuck is going on, I consult McGee and you will too, once you dig in.

Another one to consider which does a great job is the America's Test Kitchen Science of Good Cooking this will give you the fundamental "why's" or what's happening in practical situations and provides useful examples to see it for yourself.

Honestly, if someone came to me and asked if they should get MC or McGee and The Science of Good Cooking and could only pick one and never have the other, I'd recommend the McGee / ATK combo everyday of the week and twice on Tuesdays.

Good luck, dude. Go tear it up!

Cookbooks! I read so many food blogs, but it's never quite as nice as reading a cookbook, even if it's more practical.

Some I enjoyed this year:

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day - My bread-baking bible

Top with Cinnamon - This girl is 18 and is better at cooking/styling/photography/writing than I will ever be

Joy the Baker's Homemade Decadance - Basically the food blog queen

Sunday Suppers - This one is just beautiful

Don't forget the stuffing. Stuffing is the best thing about Thankgiving and it's easy to make vegan. This one is delicious and simple to veganize:

https://smittenkitchen.com/2015/11/kale-and-caramelized-onion-stuffing/

Looks like you got some other great suggestions. My whole Thanksgiving is vegan, other than a turkey for the in laws, and no one even guesses.

The Vegan Pie in the Sky book has some great pie recipes too. The cappuccino mousse pie is always a big hit.

In addition to threetoast & fumblesmcdrum, you may have added too much salt.

Look into "Crust & Crumb" if you're getting serious about bread making. It's the best resource I've come across. Some people also like "The Bread Bible".

Thanks!!

I used the recipe from The Breadbaker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart.

Honestly, it's just worth it to buy the book - Reinhart is a BOSS...

fortunately, some saint already posted the recipe on reddit. lol

Happy baking!

It depends entirely on your needs and your standards. We bought this inexpensive Oster last summer and love it. Our motivation was that our kids are getting older and starting to devour a lot of bread. Going through 3-4 decent loaves of bread each week at $3 a pop adds up. Is the bread machine loaf as good as what I can make by hand? No. But it's still pretty tasty, a basic recipe costs about $1 in ingredients, and I can pop out a simple sandwich loaf with about 10 minutes of hands-on time, including cleanup. You can't touch that hands-on time by hand, even with a stand mixer (which we also own). And if you're willing to test and tweak recipes a bit and willing to manually intervene at times (shaping the final loaf, for example), you can turn out some darn good bread with it.

The big question in buying a bread machine is how big you want your loaves to be. Specifically, 1.5 lb loaves vs 2 lb loaves. Most machines can make 2 lb loaves, but doing it well really requires a two-paddle model, which are larger, significantly more expensive, and more prone to breakage. If you can live with 1.5 lb loaves, you can get a smaller, cheaper, more durable single-paddle model like the one we have. A 1.5 lb loaf is basically a sandwich for all four of us plus a couple end hunks to gnaw on or a couple extra toast slices. So we make 1 or 2 of those loaves a week and supplement them with store-bought loaves. Still a decent cost savings - I suspect we've already paid for the $70 cost of the unit.

If you get a machine of any type or price, I strongly recommend buying this cookbook along with it. There will be recipes included with the machine, but they don't go into much detail and avoid specifying slightly hard-to-find ingredients like SAF yeast or vital wheat gluten that can really help you get better loaves. Just a little bit of knowledge and investment in the ingredients and technique yields much better results.

I would suggest reading more about the science of baking - this book is helpful and I got it out of my library.

So you can read about the science behind baking in there. But I've found that the best way I've learned is by following recipes from cookbooks/reputable websites and then slowly learning to tweak those recipes to my liking, and then completely creating my own recipes. Don't just jump in and start throwing random things into a bowl, because while you may get lucky once or twice, you don't want to get burnt out on failing.

I'm a big cake/cupcakes/pie/cookies type of gal - so if that's the sort of baking you're interested in, I would look at these cookbooks:

• Vegan Pie in the Sky
  
• Miette
  
• Martha Stewart's Cupcakes
  
  
  PS: Bread is tricky. I have barely gotten into the "follow the recipe" stage. So if you're asking about bread, don't follow the above advice. Because I know shit about bread. From what I can tell, the science is imperative and...I know none of it.
  
  Good luck! Keep us updated!

America’s Test Kitchen creates some amazing cooks books. Check our the first gluten free one https://www.amazon.com/Gluten-Free-Cookbook-Revolutionary-Groundbreaking-ebook/dp/B00IPPIETG. They also have a second volume for next years gift

Get this instead.

You'll thank me later.

Baranbaum is always a good resource and this is literally a Baking Bible.

The Baking Bible

I used the recipe from Flour Cookbook, which is a collection of recipes from Joanne Chang's Flour Bakery in Boston. I also recently attended her croissant making class, so I got to see the laminating technique first-hand which was very helpful. Unfortunately, I can't find the recipe online (probably because it's like five pages long).

You the guy who bought the bench from amazon the other day? Nice croissants by the way. May I suggest you try and find Rose Levy Bernbaum https://www.amazon.com/Rose-Levy-Beranbaum/e/B000APEDSA/ref=ntt_aut_sim_6_2/163-1711285-2211169 and Flour cookbooks by Joann Chung https://www.amazon.com/Flour-Spectacular-Recipes-Bostons-Bakery/dp/081186944X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1474851190&sr=8-1&keywords=flour+cook+book and try Gaston Lenotre as well for classic french style https://www.amazon.com/Gaston-Len%C3%B4tre/e/B001K7WQWW. I'm not advocating amazon by any means but while you may have heard of Rose you might not have of Gaston. I have a few of his books and when I was running my own kitchen I was happy to get his company's stuff flown in frozen and baked off fresh. I watch this for inspiration https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q89O0x4Mlm8&index=31&list=PLaFS8pB0obRCsHQ2voyS0wf5WV5xFCRAH

It's actually a pretty solid read.
http://www.amazon.com/Gluten-Free-Cookbook-Revolutionary-Groundbreaking-ebook/dp/B00IPPIETG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395337779&sr=8-1&keywords=test+kitchen+gluten+free

Amazon lets you read the first few pages. Give it a shot.

Someone asked about this a few months ago, and I seem to remember that the answer was no, none of the actual culinary schools officially offered GF programs; however, I might try The Culinary Institue of America. They have a GF cookbook on Amazon, so they might be open to tailoring a program to someone who is gluten free. It's worth looking into!

Also, have you thought about skipping cooking school entirely and trying to get a job at a gluten free-friendly restaurant in your town? A lot of great chefs never went to school, but just got started cooking in kitchens. If you could find someone near you who did GF cuisine, it might be worth seeing if they would hire you on. Just a thought!

He's not joking, read this: Egg: A Culinary Exploration of the World's Most Versatile Ingredient

I think this book was written for you.

Egg: A Culinary Exploration of the World's Most Versatile Ingredient https://www.amazon.com/dp/0316254061/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_ZTDSzbHQ8JRZT

These flours should certainly be considered. Regardless, they are rather esoteric. Bean, nut, and grain flours are more commonly available, or have the potential to be made in a home kitchen. My favorite reference for gluten free baking is "Gluten-Free Baking with The Culinary Institute of America". I say this not only because I am a CIA alumni. It explains how to make your own gluten free flours (I'm sorry to inform you that there isn't one universal replacement) and has a variety of common baked goods converted to use these flours.

Thanks! Pulled it from a French pastry book - https://www.amazon.com/Art-French-Pastry-Jacquy-Pfeiffer/dp/030795935X

Still learning how to “prettify” things though!

For the layer cake week, I made a small devil’s food cake. This cake was fantastic, but I did struggle a bit this week. The cake portion was incredibly easy to make even after scaling it down, and it was also quite delicious. After being unsuccessful with the original frosting paired with the cake recipe as well as a second, I eventually settled on this super basic chocolate frosting from King Arthur Flour to get it frosted. The frosting is a bit sweeter than I prefer, but it was super easy to throw together after my earlier fails.

----

One-Bowl Devil’s Food Layer Cake

Recipe from BraveTart: Iconic American Desserts by Stella Parks
Makes one 8-by-4-inch three-layer cake; 16 servings

Ingredients

• 3 sticks | 12 ounces unsalted butter
  
• 1½ cups | 12 ounces black coffee, or black tea such as Assam
  
• 1 cup | 3 ounces Dutch-process cocoa powder, such as Cacao Barry Extra Brute
  
• 1¼ cups | 6 ounces finely chopped dark chocolate, about 72%
  
• 2 cups gently packed | 16 ounces light brown sugar
  
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  
• 1 teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt (half as much if iodized)
  
• 6 large eggs, straight from the fridge
  
• 3 tablespoons | 1½ ounces egg yolks (from about 3 large eggs)
  
• 2 cups | 9 ounces all-purpose flour, such as Gold Medal
  
• 1 tablespoon baking soda
  
  

  Directions
  

1. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and preheat to 350°F. Line three 8-by-3-inch anodized aluminum cake pans with parchment and grease with pan spray; if you don’t have three pans, the remaining batter can be held at room temperature for up to 90 minutes. (The cakes won’t rise quite as high in 2-inch pans.)
   
2. Combine butter and coffee in a 5-quart stainless steel saucier and set over low heat. Once the butter is melted, remove from heat and whisk in the cocoa and chocolate, followed by the brown sugar, vanilla, and salt. Mix in the eggs and yolks. Sift in the flour (if using a cup measure, spoon into the cup and level with a knife before sifting) and baking soda. Whisk thoroughly to combine, then divide among the prepared cake pans (about 23 ounces each).
   
3. Bake until the cakes are firm, though your finger will leave an impression in the puffy crust, about 30 minutes (or 210°F). A toothpick inserted into the center will emerge with a few crumbs still attached. Cool until no trace of warmth remains, about 90 minutes.
   
4. Loosen the cakes from their pans with a knife, invert onto a wire rack, peel off the parchment, and reinvert. Trim the top crusts from the cakes with a serrated knife (this helps the cakes better absorb moisture from the frosting). Place one layer cut side up on a serving plate. Cover with a cup of the frosting, spreading it into an even layer with the back of a spoon. Repeat with the second and third layers, cut side down. Finish the top and sides of the cake with the remaining frosting, and coat with cookie crumbs, if you like.
   
5. Under a cake dome or an inverted pot, the frosted cake will keep for up to 24 hours at room temperature. After cutting, wrap leftover slices individually and store at room temperature for up to 4 days more.
   
   

   Chocolate Frosting
   

   
   Recipe from King Arthur Flour
   Makes enough for one 8” or 9” two-layer cake
   
   

   Ingredients
   

   
   

• 1¼ cups | 106g natural cocoa powder (sifted if lumpy)
  
• 1 cup + 3 cups | 113g + 340g confectioners' sugar (sifted if lumpy)
  
• ¼ teaspoon salt
  
• ⅓ cup | 74g hot water
  
• 1 tablespoon | 14g vanilla extract
  
• 16 tablespoons (1 cup) | 227g butter, softened
  
  

  Directions
  

1. In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer, stir together - by hand or mixer - the cocoa powder, 1 cup (113g) of the confectioners’ sugar, and the salt. Stir in the water and vanilla, scraping the bowl if necessary.
   
2. Add the butter and remaining confectioners’ sugar, stirring to combine. Using an electric hand mixer or a stand mixer with paddle attachment, beat the frosting at medium-high speed for 1 to 2 minutes, until lightened in color and fluffy, stopping halfway through to scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl. When the frosting is ready, scoop out a bit on your spatula; does it seem nicely spreadable? If it's too stiff, beat in water (1 teaspoon at a time) until it's the consistency you want.

It's ridiculously good. Looks like this:

http://image.delcotimes.com/storyimage/DC/20131113/LIFE/131119795/EP/1/1/EP-131119795.jpg&maxh=400&maxw=667

I'm not sure what cookbook it's from, maybe this one:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1455520519/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1455520519&linkCode=as2&tag=joythebak00-20

Or if you're lazy like me, Artisan Bread in 5

For those who won't investigate any further, and to make it easier for others as well, this is a recently (April 8th, 2014) released book: Egg: A Culinary Exploration of the World's Most Versatile Ingredient by Michael Ruhlman.

I made Stellas chocolate chip cookies - the brown butter version and used toasted sugar. These might be the best cookies I've ever eaten. 😳

My fam loves these cookies and they were devoured the day that I baked them.

Recipe I used was from her book! I will keep recommending friends to buy this book because I've seen a lot of success with it.

buy her book!

Edit: added link to purchase book (and only just figured out how to hyperlink on mobile 😯)

Link for those wanting it.

Thanks for the heads up! First kindle recipe book. Should be interesting.

http://www.amazon.com/Baking-Bible-Rose-Levy-Beranbaum/dp/1118338618/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1419978179&sr=8-1&keywords=baking+bible

http://www.amazon.com/Science-Cooking-Cooks-Illustrated-Cookbooks/dp/1933615982/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1419978172&sr=8-2&keywords=science+of+baking

My SO has been brewing for 4 years and has now also gotten into breakmaking; we're now looking into making our own yeast starter for the bread (commercial yeast only rises so much). This is a great book if you're interested in making bread yeast starters: Nancy Silvertons Breads From The La Brea Bakery

They're from this book

I moved to a new apartment a couple of weeks ago and still haven't finished unpacking the kitchen. Nevertheless, the hazelnut (gluten-free) variation* of Glossy Fudge Brownies from Stella Parks' BraveTart was a wonderful way to christen the oven.

I've made the original version in the past. Both are the best brownies I've ever had.

My coworkers could not stop raving about how moist and decadent they are.

​

*"Replace the all-purpose flour with 7 ounces (1 3/4 cups) hazelnut flour or an equal weight of toasted, skinned hazelnuts pulsed with the cocoa in a food processor until powdery and fine, about 1 minute."

I'll echo the suggestions for finding one used. I got an old Breadman off Craigslist for $10. I recently bought a bread machine cookbook (used), and a whole new world has opened up.

I'm sure she has plenty of gluten free books but if she doesn't have these please consider them as a gift! They have been the only ones I've really liked so far.

Some of my favorite gluten free books are the America's Test Kitchen "The How Can It Be Gluten Free Cookbook 1 and 2" and also Russ Crandall's books "Paleo Takeout" and "The Ancestral Table".

These books have helped me so much! I didn't enjoy cooking before but these books helped me and everything I've tried so far has been delicious. My husband doesn't need to eat gluten free and he enjoys these meals so they've made our lives easier lol.

I'm not sure if your mom enjoys cooking or not but even if you buy these for yourself you can surprise her with a delicious and safe home-made meal or even cake! The ATK #2 book has a yummy cupcake recipes in it too! Everything from scratch even the icing! I made some funfetti cupcakes for a friend a week ago and she enjoyed them! She didn't realize they were gluten free lol.

Here are some vegan baking tips from Isa Chandra Moskowitz of the Post Pink Kitchen: Vegan baking 101 from PPK.

Another good vegan baking primer from the Kitchn.

I'd say Isa and her co-author Terry Hope Romero are the authorities on vegan baking. Check out their baking cookbooks on cupcakes, cookies, and pies.

For a 1-volume comprehensive vegan baking cookbook and traditional recipes, check out Colleen Patrick Goudreau's Joy of Vegan Baking.

For a vegan baking cookbook with unique and creative flavors, try the Cheers to Vegan Sweets cookbook.

Hope this helped! Happy baking!

Find a good vegan cookbook. Heck, find three or four of them. I like the Veganomicon, which is a great general reference, but you can find one for everything, from pies to soul food to sandwiches.

Cookbooks will do two things for you. First, they'll provide a resource if you start to feel cravings for food you used to rely on: if you get desperate for burgers, or chicken parmesan, or mousakka, you'll find a great alternative that scratches that itch. Second, they'll provide an excellent resource to browse through and find recipes you'd never have thought of on your own. Expanding your palate is a surefire way to improve your diet.

A big thumbs up for Peter Reinhart. He also wrote American Pie: My Search for the Perfect Pizza, arguably the best book ever for people who want to make great pizza at home.

EDIT: I just found out he has a website - Pizza Quest

Someone gave me Baking:From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, which I thought was a fantastic book with some good pictures. I also like books by David Lebovitz. He has a great blog about his life in Paris and he used to be a pastry chef here in the States. Fante's Kitchen Shop always looks like they have interesting things too. I love to browse there for ideas. Hope that helps a bit.

They are made from white chocolate, the design is from this and this. They are really interesting books but really kinda complex stuff in there.

Food science is a field in and of itself. If you look into google scholar, you'll find that not only is research in cooking a thing, you can major in it, get degrees in food chemistry, as well as fragrance and flavor chemistry. If you want more information on degree programs Cornell has a very well established one.
https://foodscience.cals.cornell.edu/graduate/

And in case you think there's nobody computing on this, I have computational friends who work in food science, agriculture, and yes, one computational fragrance chemist. The last one uses machine learning with cheminformatics to predict what potential molecules may have as far as scent properties.

Hit up google scholar and search "Food science review". You'll find a lot of what you're looking for there.

I can also recommend this book as well. It's very well put together and the information in there was produced by an army of test cooks. They do recipes over and over to feel out the parameter space and walk the reader through what's going on with whatever they're doing. It may be what you're looking for as a home cook.

https://www.amazon.com/Science-Good-Cooking-Illustrated-Cookbooks-ebook/dp/B009POEWK6/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1549376721&sr=8-3&keywords=the+science+of+cooking

I highly recommend the book if you like pies. I don't think that all of the recipes are home runs, but many are. There are a ton of creative recipes inside, and it is totally worth the money IMO. I made the Bourbon Pear pie for my coworkers and it was a huge hit.

Thank you, I"m so glad that you love Baking From My Home To Yours- I've got a special place in my heart for that book. Not surprisingly, I'm a fan of homemade brownies I love that making them from scratch means that I can use the cocoa and the chocolate that I love best. But, I think that brownies are one of those desserts that's subjective - it's the cakey vs fudgy thing. Maybe you haven't found the right recipe for your particular taste? That said, you know, you really don't have to - if you love boxed brownies, keep making them. Dessert is all about pleasure and there are no right or wrong answers.

>But I want to delve a little deeper to learn more and maybe even be able to "freestyle" in the future.

I'd say the very first thing you need to learn is to grasp & adopt the concept of how you really, truly learn cooking. There's a quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin that goes, "The most powerful force in the universe is compounding interest." That means that as you do little bits of work on a consistent basis, it adds up to create fluency & accomplishment. Same idea as high school...you show up every day for 4 years & suddenly you have a diploma! If you can buy into that idea, then that will serve as the 'guiding light' for how you approach cooking, i.e. as steady, consistent progress against individual recipes, techniques, and flavor combinations, rather than random shotgun blasts scattered here & there.

In cooking, you can't do all of the processes & understand all of the flavor combinations unless you've studied them & actually done them, hands-on, in-person, and that is a long-term process. Until then, you're just window shopping, you know? I have a few posts here on kind of the basics of cooking that is worth reading through:

https://www.reddit.com/r/cookingforbeginners/comments/ajrsio/what_basicgeneral_cooking_tips_and_advice_do_you_think_everybody_should_kno/eeyhpua/?context=3

And in order to do learn those processes & understand the flavor combinations & build up a personal recipe database, you need to cook - a lot! If you're really serious about it, then I would recommend cooking every single day. Not necessarily every single meal, but cook at least one thing a day. In order to do that, you need to do some meal planning, which involves picking out what to cook, going shopping, and planning out what to make & when. I have a few posts on that here as well:

https://www.reddit.com/r/mealprep/comments/afdqju/meal_prep_ideas/edyhgbu/

Here is what I would recommend:

1. Commit to a plan. I'd suggest cooking just one thing a day. It can be separate from your actual meals, if you'd like, which is how I do it - I cook one meal a day for freezer storage when I get home from work every day. And because my kitchen is organized, I've made a meal-plan for the week, I've gone shopping, I've picked what day I'm going to cook each recipe, I've created a reminder alarm on my phone, and I have the recipe...I mean, it pretty much just boils down to actually doing the work, you know? Which is pretty dang easy, because at this point of preparation, it's like shooting fish in a barrel...I know what to make, how to make it, I have all the ingredients, and I'm only doing just one single solitary little recipe at a time, just one per day.
   
2. "Cook the book" - buy one cookbook & work your way through it. Personally, I'd recommend starting off with Kenji's Food Lab book. He has great pre-vetted recipes & explains them thoroughly. If you prefer baking, then check out Stella's Bravetart book, which takes a similar approach.
   
3. Create a recipe storage locker & a notes locker. I'd recommend Evernote or OneNote. They let you search, tag, and create individual notes, so you can organize things by ingredient, cooking style, and so on. All of the raw ingredients in the world already exist. All of the known recipes that are documented are already written down. There's a tremendous amount of knowledge & resources out there in terms of flavor combinations, tools, and ingredients available at your disposable...but your database is pretty empty right now. The rest of the world doesn't matter...what matters is filling up your personal database so that you can cook & bake & create delicious things for yourself, your family, and your friends. Your job is to build up that knowledge recipe by recipe, technique by technique, ingredient by ingredient. You've tried paprika, but have you tried smoked paprika? You've tried cinnamon, but have you tried roasted cinnamon? Have you used a microplane on a cinnamon stick or a whole nutmeg? You may have used garlic powder or chopped up a clove of garlic before, but have to roasted it to the point where it spreads like butter? Have you fermented black garlic in a rice cooker? That's not stuff you learn all at once, instantly, overnight, and become a pro at...you have to learn the flavors, and the process, and experiment, and see what works & what doesn't, and equally importantly, you need to write that down, because you WILL forget, but having your notes allows you to get inspired & think up great combinations & try new things & fall back on old ones.
   
   I mean, basically that's it - create a plan that involves doing a little bit of work on a regular basis, commit to it, and create some processes & reminders that enable you to easily slip into cooking mode when you want to. It's nothing more than a simple checklist, and you can be all over the map with it - learn how to cook marshmallows, and chicken tikka masala, and how to make your own jello, and what crystals are in chocolateering & how to temper your own chocolate using sous-vide, and how to cook using an electric pressure cooker, and what a good basic kitchen toolset looks like. Imagine if you only learn one thing a day or cook one thing a day...in a year, you'll have 365 new tidbits of knowledge under your belt; in five years, you'll have nearly two thousand bits of information under your belt.
   
   Please feel free to ask questions! To me, cooking isn't about going hardcore every day by cooking lots of stuff for hours & hours, it's about specifically focusing on one individual thing at a time & mastering it so that you "own" that knowledge, you know?
   
   For example, I went through a marshmallow phase. I went to a dessert shop a few winters ago & they had this amazing ultra-premium hot chocolate that was just out of this world, then they topped it off with a giant 2" hand-made marshmallow that they skewered & finished with a torch. It was sooooo good that I HAD to learn how to make it! As it turns out, like with anything else, you can deep-dive into just those two topics alone - hot chocolate & marshmallows. Here's some good introductory reading from one of my favorite hot chocolate shops in NYC, "City Bakery": (I'm pretty sure they just melt a chocolate bar into a cup, haha!)
   
   https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/food/article-4172562/Make-best-hot-chocolate-City-Bakery.html
   
   Four of my favorite NY chefs (Dominque Ansel, Jacques Torres, Maury Rubin, and Michael Klug) have some very different opinions on it:
   
   https://food52.com/blog/15460-how-to-make-the-best-hot-chocolate-according-to-the-experts
   
   part 1/2

This book changed my baking life:

https://www.amazon.com/Bread-Bakers-Apprentice-15th-Anniversary/dp/1607748657

http://www.amazon.com/Baking-Home-Yours-Dorie-Greenspan/dp/0618443363

Note, many of the recipes on the Great British Bake-Off are very British. They won't be in a standard baking book not from Britain.

It is pretty much how flamingbabyjesus said. It is more of a process than a recipe. http://www.thefreshloaf.com/ this is a very good resource. I have Flour Water Salt Yeast wich explains all the steps, and ive heard that Tartine is also a very good book.
p.s A skale is very importaint.

Cook's The Science of Good Cooking uses browned butter in their Ultimate Chocolate Chip cookie recipe. 10 T browned + 4 T un-browned (added to the hot butter so it's all melted).

It adds a more nutty flavor, but I think that it isn't as effective at creaming, so that's why you want to add some uncooked butter too.

If you want the simplest no-knead approach as a foundation for variations, I'd recommend Jim Lahey's My Bread. He's less up-tight about details than Ken Forkish, but the bread is just as great, and there is a lot more variety (e.g. carrot bread, olive bread, cheese bread, coconut-chocolate bread). But it's not a comprehensive recipe book.

If you want a more traditional book of recipes, I'd say check out Reinhart's Bread Baker's Apprentice or Beranbaum's Bread Bible.

I have it too, it's called Gluten Free Baking with the Culinary Institute of America

honestly, I had to learn to make my own GF breads and doughs. This is a great book if not a bit complex - but the bread turns out the best from the recipes I've tried.

Incidentally, Buddha's Belly (there's one on Beverly) has a great GF menu if you ask your server for it.

I love my bread machine. I don't even like to eat bread that I didn't make anymore (unless from a legit bakery).

This cookbook has been so fun to go through! And informative for the bread making newbies - The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook: A Master Baker's 300 Favorite Recipes for Perfect-Every-Time Bread-From Every Kind of Machine https://www.amazon.com/dp/155832156X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_fb0SCbS9Z29T2

If bread is what you want to learn, I highly suggest buying

Crust and Crumb by Peter Reinhart

Or

Bread by Jeffrey Hamelman

And if you like rye breads I highly highly recommend

The Rye Baker by Stanley Ginsberg

Honestly I can't recommend The Rye Baker enough, it quickly became my favorite bread book.

I'm in the exact same situation, about a year and a half removed. For a while I put up with a diet lacking baked goods, but eventually I decided enough was enough and bought this: https://www.amazon.com/Gluten-Free-Baking-Culinary-Institute-America/dp/1598696130


That book is amazing, and costs $4 after shipping for a used copy on Amazon. I use it all the time and it was well worth the cost. Additional advice:


Aldi, the grocery chain, has lots of gluten-free items. In particular, their pasta is pretty good, and more important is the cheapest we've found thus far ($1.25/lb).


If you do get the above book and make the flour blends (not as hard as it sounds), try to get the rice flour and tapioca starch from an Asian grocer or even a Woodman's with a good international aisle - since those make up the bulk of the flour blends, it brings the cost down to the point where you never have to worry about messing up a recipe.

Thank you!

It's from the book Artisan Sourdough Made Simple (which I highly recommend), so I don't have it readily available to share.

I use the recipe from Crust & Crumb, and I use Kolona buttermilk for the soaker if it calls for one. King Arthur or Bob's Red Mill on the flour. Fleischman's instant yeast (commercial version, different from active dry).

My bread stone is also an oven rack covered with unglazed quarry tile, so it's bigger than most commercial stones. I also work with a second person.

Traditional naan is cooked in a tandoori oven, and the stone is crazy hot when the dough is stuck to it, to replicate this at home you have to use half the stone at a time, alternating so the other half can heat back up. Your assistant is responsible for brushing with melted butter and garlic in between, and maybe pulling the finished naan off the stone. I'm stretching, rolling, and throwing in the oven pretty much the whole time.

when you throw the naan on the stone, I kind of flip it towards the back, get one side to stick on the stone, and then pull it towards the front of the oven before I let go. You have to be quick about it, and try not to leave the oven sitting open more than necessary.

Also, it helps if your oven can get blazing-ass hot. I usually preheat for 45min-1hr at 550 before I do bread (regardless of the recipe), and this is no exception.

Firstly: Good luck! You're doing well already, and you'll get to where you want to be in time.

Have you got any vegan recipe books? Easy Vegan and 500 Vegan Dishes both have fairly simple but tasty dishes. I don't think they tend to need very exotic ingredients.

Easy Vegan:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vegan-Cookery-Ryland-Peters-Small/dp/1845979583

500 Vegan Dishes:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/500-Vegan-Dishes-Deborah-Gray/dp/1845434161

And do you feel that vegan meat alternatives aren't as easy to buy, or maybe aren't as good, as the vegetarian ones? You say that you eat the Linda McCartney pies, so I guess you've seen other products in that range too. But Fry's Vegetarian is great, and I've recently heard really good things about Vegusto meat alternatives - their Farmhouse sausages in particular, but also their burgers (you'll probably have to order off their website though).

Fry's Vegetarian:
http://www.frysvegetarian.co.uk/

Vegusto:
http://vegusto.co.uk/

I guess you probably know about Holland and Barrett stores? They're good for getting some of the more exotic ingredients, but they also have meat alternatives and such. Also, they have a few microwaveable meals - pasties and that sort of thing - which are quite nice. You can also often get microwaveable burritos, and probably other similar things, in the frozen section.

Also here are a couple of easy meals I like:

(1) Buy refried beans (http://www.oldelpaso.co.uk/products/refried-beans/975cedfc-f177-4eda-a689-192c4ec346af/) and put it in tacos (along with corn, lettuce, tomato, and whatever else you like). (The refried beans are seriously good.)

(2) You can make falafel easily (http://www.alfez.com/moroccan_lebanese_cuisine/products/all-products/falafel.html) and eat it with houmous, because everyone likes houmous.

If you're mainly looking for sweeter things:
Co-operative custard donuts and jam donuts are both apparently vegan (and delicious). You can buy vegan ice cream in the frozen section of Holland and Barrett (and maybe at Tesco or other supermarkets) - Swedish Glace is pretty incredible, and most people say it's as good as ordinary ice cream. You can also get vegan cheesecake in Holland and Barrett, again in the frozen section. Also buy Lotus Caramelised Biscuit Spread and put it on Tesco Oaties (well, that's a combination I like, but I guess you could mix it up...).

Or if you wanted to bake, these are three really good books:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vegan-Cupcakes-Take-Over-World/dp/1569242739

http://www.amazon.com/Vegan-Pie-Sky-Out-This-World/dp/0738212741

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vegan-Cookies-Invade-Your-Cookie/dp/160094048X

(The cookie book is by far the easiest, and uses the least exotic ingredients. On the other end of the spectrum is the pie book, which uses things like coconut oil and agar agar - the first of which you can get at Holland and Barrett but the second of which you'd have to order online.)

Also, just by the way: 'What Fat Vegans Eat', a facebook page, gives you a constant stream of delicious-looking vegan food.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/194567900666819/?fref=nf

I used a variety of dough recipes before, but settled on the Neo-Neopolitan recipe in this book: American Pie by Peter Reinhart. That dough recipe with the crushed tomato sauce recipe makes for a great pizza. I think one of the big tricks is finding the right yeast (I've had great luck with Bob's Red Mill Active Yeast and SAF Instant. On the east coast I used SAF, but replaced with the Bob's when I moved to the west coast.

Both yeasts will work well. The trick with both is to let your dough do a cold rise in the fridge. I will mix everything together to create the dough, then let it rise for somewhere between 15-60 min at room temp in whatever container I'm using to hold them (to keep moisture in the dough), then I let them sit and rise in the fridge for at least 24 hours, ideally 36-72 hours. Then when you're ready to make your pizza, bring the dough out two hours prior and let it rise.

This sounds complicated because you have to plan things in advance, but it's really not. It takes a combined amount of work that totals like 40 min and you have pizza dough for a week. It's also kind of fun to do, so there is that.

One your dough is ready, you need to cook it. During some point when the dough is rising, you should make some sauce. I like the crushed tomato sauce because it tastes awesome and is way easy. Get a can of crushed San Marzano tomatoes, put them in a blender and throw in oregeno, basil, maybe some garlic, salt, and that's basically it (please see recipe in book for detailed instructions). This sauce gets cooked when it's on the pizza, so I generally make the sauce about 30 min before I plan to put the sauce on the pie. That gives the flavors enough time to mix together when I have it sitting in the fridge, on-deck to go in the pizza. Keeping the sauce cool also has a nice effect on the dough when it's cooking (keeps the top of the crush soft while the bottom gets crispy.

Ok, so you're ready to combine it all. Grab a dough ball from the counter (that was rising for the past 2 hours), and flatten it out. People do different styles, but I like to flatten the doughball into a disk, and then toss that pizza dough like I work in a pizza place. This part is fun, but takes a couple times to learn, so expect that.

Once your pizza dough is all stretched out, put some toppings on it. I think it's great to do a plan cheese the first couple of times because it helps you figure out where to work on for improvement. Once you're ready, slide that pizza on to the pizza stone/steel/whatever you're using. Depending on the temp of your oven, that should be done in 6-10 min. If you have a brick oven (i want one so badly), you can finish a pizza in 90 seconds at 1000 degrees. For normal household ovens, you want to crank it as high as it will go, and if you're using a pizza stone or steel, let that heat up at the highest temp for at least 45 min so it can store the max amount of energy that will then be transformed into a perfect crust.

Ok, so those are the basics. You should buy that book because the instructions are way better than what I gave. Also, it has lots of dough, sauce, and topping recipes, in addition to the first half of the book being a story about a journey for the perfect pizzas.

Pizza is fucking awesome and once you begin to make your own and take pride in it, you will never be able to go back to shitty corporate pizza ever again.

Also, pic of most recently baked pizza. This was a good recipe, but I'd swap asparagus for romanescos next time and I think I got lazy with the oven heating and should have let it heat the steel up for more than 30 min. Tasted amazing though.

I got alot of ideas from http://www.amazon.com/Whats-New-Cupcake-Ingeniously-Occasion/dp/054724181X

http://www.amazon.com/The-French-Pastry-Jacquy-Pfeiffer/dp/030795935X


This by far. He is the co-owner of arguably the best pastry school in the USA and has had his family and friends test these recipes in their own kitchens to make sure they are easy to follow and yield excellent results.

I got so tired of looking for good bagels in the city that I decided to learn to make them myself.

It is a multi-day process and you need a pretty heavy duty mixer, but [this book(
https://www.amazon.com/Nancy-Silvertons-Breads-Brea-Bakery/dp/0679409076/) is in the central library and I use a modified version of its bagel recipe.

I also quickly realized that learning to bake starting with Bagels what's like trying to start mountain climbing by scaling Everest, but dammit I wasn't going to be without good bagels.

Understanding the hydration of your doughs will open up a lot of the mystery behind bread baking. The Bread Baker’s Apprentice is a fantastic book to have on your shelf too.

I'll have toDM it cause it's out if a book :)

Edit to say: I lied, I can't attach a word document in a reddit DM. You can either DM me your email address and I'll send it OR purchase this book https://www.amazon.com/Art-French-Pastry-Jacquy-Pfeiffer/dp/030795935X/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=jacquy+pfeiffer&qid=1557018828&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Jeff Hertzberg. Here’s the link to The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking

My family is going to have a really financially tight Christmas this year, and I want to make everyone bread and lots of goodies. Especially my cousins, they are going through more rough stuff than they should have to. Last Thanksgiving their mom (who I am not directly related to) sent them to their dad's house, for what was supposed to be the weekend, but told them not to come back because she didn't want them anymore. How messed up is that?? Anyway, their dad has 2 prior convictions on his record and is having a hard time finding work, so the extended family has helped a lot keeping the boys clothed and fed and all that good stuff.

So, even though my money is tight, I want to make the boys holidays as awesome as possible, and one of the ways I can think of to do that is bake. So I would really like The Baking Bible.

The science of cooking. Great book.

http://www.amazon.com/Science-Good-Cooking-Illustrated-Cookbooks-ebook/dp/B009POEWK6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1421271078&sr=8-1&keywords=the+science+of+cooking

I am not sure of what you already have or what you would need, I am listing a few things on top of my head:

• Crock pot
  
• Cast iron skillet
  
• Dutch oven
  
• Victorinox chef knife
  
• Microplane zester
  
• Bread maker machine
  
• Mandoline
  
• Mortar and pestle
  
• Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza
  
• Tartine bread
  
• Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking
  
• Espresso maker
  
• Cookie Sheet and cooling racks
  
• Meat Thermometer

FYI, same price for the kindle version right now as well.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F8H0FNW

This book is great: http://www.amazon.com/Bread-Lovers-Machine-Cookbook-Perfect-Every-Time/dp/155832156X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1343517142&sr=8-1&keywords=bread+machine+book

Buy this book. You're welcome.

I have a cookbook obsession, I have roughly 500 that are somewhat organized so I feel like I can be of great use here. I will break it down by type to make it easier.

Bibles

• Baking Bible
  
• Cake Bible
  
• The Pie and Pastry Bible
  
  Bread
  
  
• Beard on Bread
  
• Bread
  
• Bread Baker's Apprentice
  
• Flour Water Salt Yeast
  
• Josey Baker Bread (I just genuinely like this guy tho lol)
  
• All of the Tartine books (just get all of them, Chad is the man when it comes to bread)
  
  Caramels/Candys/Ice Cream
  
  
• Ample hills creamery
  
• Artisan caramels
  
• Chocolates & Confections
  
• The Sweet Book of Candy Making
  
• Sweet Cream And Sugar Cones
  
  Jack of all trades
  
  
• Baked Occasions
  
• Baker's four seasons
  
• Flour
  
• Flour Too
  
• Model Bakery Cookbook
  
• Momofuku Milk Bar
  
• Ovenly
  
  Pastry/Pies
  
  
• The Art of French Pastry (this is one of my all time favorites)
  
• Creative Eclairs (whole set is great for beginners to intermediates)
  
• First Prize Pies
  
  Textbooks
  
  
• Baking and pastry
  
• On Baking
  
  
  I'm sure I am leaving out a bunch of great ones but if I had to suggest just 1 to anyone it would DEFINITELY be The Art of French Pastry. Best for somebody who has done basics already and looking to try a little more. Even as a professional baker I find myself coming back and just reading the little spots like how he burned himself on his caramel. Great, great book!

I don't know any recipes off the top of my head but this cookbook was written by Chef Coppedge at the Culinary Institute of America, he specializes in Gluten free cooking. He's also hilarious, lanky over 6ft and can do the splits like they're nothing.

Sure thing. I've been through a bunch of gluten free flour blends already. I like King Arthur and Red Bob's Mill GF AP flour the best so far. If you want different types of GF flours (rice flours, starches, etc) Red Bob's Mill is the place to go. They have everything. Most grocery stores will carry at least some of the line. I've also ordered from Amazon. I keep all my flours (I bake a LOT and stock way more flours than normal) in sterile bins to keep the bugs out. If you get flour beetles or anything like that, you have to purge with fire and depending on your level of interest, specialty flours can get a bit spendy.

Xanthum gum is the glue that holds GF everything together. You don't need much but it is pretty magical stuff. Early on I was like "1/8th of teaspoon won't make a difference". LIES. It makes a huge difference. I *believe* the King Arthur GF AP flour may already have xanthum gum in it but if you are using other flours or experimenting with converting recipes, this is an important addition to your baking.

I pull a lot of recipes (both gluten free and not) from King Arthur Flour. They have been massively expanding their gluten free recipes and they test bake EVERYTHING. I have never had one of their recipes go really south. They have lots of good advice and will help you troubleshoot as well.

If you are a big bread fan but "don't have time", this book is for you. I own both GF and original and use them all the time. They developed a method so you could make the dough/rise when you have time and then throw it in the fridge. When you want bread, you pull it out, shape, and bake. I use mine for pita a lot.

America's Test Kitchen also has a fabulous resource. It is filled with recipes but also the "basics" of gluten free baking, how it works, and what you can and can't substitute. Even if you don't use the recipes (which you probably will), I think it is a pretty valuable resource.

Finally, I troubleshot GF, vegan pasta dough. We made ravioli with it but if you are into pasta, you could probably do whatever with it. I'm pretty proud of it so I'm sharing:

250 grams Brown Rice Flour

100 g Potato or tapioca starch

1 TBSP flaxseed Meal

1 tsp xanthum gum

1 tsp salt

3/4 c warm water

2 TBSP olive oil

Mix dry ingredients in standmixer, add water slowly to form cohesive dough. Rest for 30 mins in plastic wrap at room temp. Roll, fill, whatever your final shape is. Cook for 6 min in boiling, salted water.

​

Best of luck!

My girlfriend has the book that shows how to make those, "Hello, Cupcake"

Also check out "What's New, Cupcake"

OO Is this the Boule recipe from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day?

Edit: fixed book link

This book changed my approach and brought me a lot of success.

https://www.amazon.com/Crust-Crumb-Master-Formulas-Serious/dp/1580088023

Martha Stewart, Dorie Greenspan, and Rose Levy Berenbaum are my go-to's for classic recipes with none of the low fat/no sugar/no gluten stuff.

Any classic French basic pastry recipes like for pastry cream, choux, croissants, etc, are always going to be chock-full of butter and sugar and the good stuff, too. Check out Eugenie Kitchen on YouTube for some very easy, classic French recipes (by a very sweet Korean woman).

Here are my favorite baking cookbooks:

Rose Levy Berenbaum - The Baking Bible

Rose Levy Berenbaum - The Cake Bible

Dorie Greenspan - Baking: From My Home To Yours

Martha Stewart - Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook

Martha Stewart - Martha Stewart's Cookies: The Very Best Treats to Bake and to Share

Smitten Kitchen is also great for desserts that are a bit fancier, but still classically rich/traditional ingredients.


I LOVE BAKING.

You should try the recipe for brioche from this book! It takes two days total to make, but it is soooo delicious and absolutely worth it. He also includes a recipe for cinnamon rolls using this dough and they are easily the best cinnamon rolls I've ever had. :)

I don't know if it's heresy, but have you considered a bread machine? I have a Zojirushi Home Bakery Supreme (2 lb), and use it 75% of the time for mixing doughs. I make about 5 loaves/doughs a week in it.

It's super since you can program in your knead times/cycles/types (settings for white/wheat, for example), and mine has an automatic 'punch down' action built around its rising times. On mine I believe I can program up to 3 different rise cycles, each up to 24 hours? The enclosed machine works well for proofing between kneads (don't need to worry about drying out etc.), and I've started to plan meals around the timer function so I can have fresh dough ready for me @ 3pm for dinner that day, setting it up in the mornings alongside coffee & breakfast.

I've read many good things about the longevity of Zo's, and in my experience (several month ownership, making ~5 loaves and/or doughs a week) it's solid and reliable. I even like the loaves baked in it for sandwiches/sweet breads (Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook has LOTS of options).

I know it is missing all of the stand mixer pluses, but for me I'm not a baker of sweets/cakes and already own a pasta machine/assorted grinders and Amazon regularly puts it on sale for $200 free ship/no tax for most, sometimes down to $180 (create a pricewatch with camelcamelcamel for the best deal). There are also other machines with different options (timed yeast introduction, french bread cycles, etc.) but I don't know them, just that they're out there.

Good luck in your search! :)

I like to bake them fresh loaves of bread. It's extremely cheap, everyone loves fresh bread, and then you also know how to bake bread.

That linked book's master recipe makes 4 loaves a batch and is idiot proof, no kneading or guesswork. They look exactly like the picture on the cover and are delicious. Feel free to pm me if you have any questions.

1. I cut out meat first because I was a vegetarian for a while, then the most expensive stuff (cheese and other dairy) except butter, then last was eggs and butter when I realized that you can bake without eggs and butter.
   
   
2. For a while I tracked everything in Excel but it was a pain in the ass and I realized I mostly have it all in my head anyways.
   
   
3. All over, but good places to start are Bryant Terry's books,, Alternative Vegan, Decolonize Your Diet, The Lotus and the Artichoke books, Mango and Mint, and for deserts, Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar and Vegan Pie in the Sky.

This book is all you need for perfect pizza made at home. Worth every dollar.

If he likes pizza and you guys like to cook you could get him all the tools and a cookbook to make pizza. It would be relatively inexpensive since pizza stones are cheap, pizza cutters are cheap, and all you really need beyond that is this incredible cookbook by Peter Reinhart. That's also another concrete and sentimental gift since there is a tangible aspect but it's also a precommitment to make pizza together.

Cooked in an enamel roaster. Used a combination of fig jam and lime cordial and Artisan Sourdough made simple methods. In short, 50g starter, 375ml water, 500g flour and 9g salt. Mixed, rested for 1 hour. Light knead then proved for 10 hours. Shaped and put in banneton for 2 hours before cooking.

Beth Hensperger's Bread Machine Cookbook

If you're looking for variety in your bread machine baking I recommend

The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook https://www.amazon.com/dp/155832156X

Tons of interesting recipes and I don't recall any that didn't come out as intended.

At some point I got bored with the bread machine because of its limitations but I'll still use some of the variations from this cookbook when I bake sourdough now.

Nancy Silverton's book gives the step-by-step.

Stella Parks new book for pastry. I haven't read it but if it anything like her serious eats articles it will be what you are looking for. For that matter, Kenji's "The Food Lab" is an excellent resource for savory food. It puts the why and how right out front.

The FAQ on the side bar has a ton of suggestions. Some may be from older posts but worth checking out.

Here’s the link to the book Nancy Silverton’s

I'm a big fan of the Four & Twenty Blackbirds Pie Book. https://www.amazon.com/Four-Twenty-Blackbirds-Pie-Book/dp/1455520519

It was pretty good! I haven't had strawberry rhubarb in a while, but I think it's pretty comparable tart-wise.

Here's the filling! (I got the recipe from this book)

• 1 lb fresh rhubarb, cut into 1/2 inch pieces (2.5 cups)
  
• 2 cups raspberries
  
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
  
• 2/3 cup packed light brown sugar
  
• 3 Tbsp ground arrowroot (I used 2 Tbsp of cornstarch)
  
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
  
• 1/4 tsp ground cardamom
  
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
  
• 1 large egg
  
• 1 dash Angostura bitters
  
  Mix rhubarb, raspberries, granulated and brown sugars, arrowroot, cinnamon, cardamom, and salt in a large bowl and toss to combine. Stir in the egg and bitters. Pour the filling into the pastry shell, arrange lattice on top.
  
  Bake at 425F 20-25 minutes on lowest rack of oven, until pastry is set and beginning to brown. Lower temperature to 375F, move pie to center oven rack and bake another 30-35 minutes until the pastry is a deep golden brown and juices are bubbling throughout.
  
  Enjoy!

It's one of those 'personal preference' issues, really.

I've read a lot of the books that others have mentioned, but I haven't bought my own copies, mostly because I'm satisfied with Rose Levy Beranbaum's books, and have stuck with those. She's a good teacher who seems to understand the specific challenges of baking at home with the ingredients I can find. (Lots of other cookbooks seem to be focused on professional type baking situations, and on artisanal baking. Not what I need or want to use.)

Her recipes have been consistently reliable, approachable and the end results have been very tasty.

Some projects are apparently more than I want to manage, so I haven't baked EVERYTHING in her books, but I do own them all, if that tells you anything.

I learned a lot from her Bread bible.
http://www.amazon.com/Bread-Bible-Rose-Levy-Beranbaum/dp/0393057941

Her newest, The Baking Bible also looks great (just got it, haven't yet worked my way completely through it.

http://www.amazon.com/Baking-Bible-Rose-Levy-Beranbaum/dp/1118338618/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_y

There are a lot of different approaches to this kind of project. Along the way in my experiments, I learned that I'm not really all that fascinated with rustic artisanal breads, and that most professional cookbooks just aren't what I'm looking for in the way of specific advice on projects I can manage at home. For one thing, living where I do, finding top quality flours is a problem (i.e., online only).

Editing to add: I think it's probably best to buy a cookbook produced in your own country, whatever that might be. For example, ingredients can be hard to source, and wording can be a confusing issue. (British cookbooks have given me a lot of great ideas, but living in the US, I find I need to double check my understanding of the instructions and the ingredients. Metric measurements are a godsend, though, they simplify a lot. Other measuring standards can be more confusing.)

With these baking skills you going to be staying a girlfriend. May i recommend? https://www.amazon.com/Baking-Bible-Rose-Levy-Beranbaum/dp/1118338618/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=baking+book&qid=1570313851&sr=8-1

Not Julia Childs but this is a great book

https://www.amazon.com/Art-French-Pastry-Jacquy-Pfeiffer/dp/030795935X

Egg by Michael Ruhlman.
Great book; the breakfast strata is spectacular.

A lot of the top line ones have covered the good ones so a few niche ones I’m digging right now:

Flour by Joanne Chang

Really great bakery in Boston opens up some of their best recipes (and there is a sequel if you dont love the recipe mix)

Eat What You Watch

Because /u/OliverBabish is the best and it’s an insanely fun book (a friend is currently doing a recipe/movie weekend every month)

Try Dorie Greenspan's "Baking: From my home to yours"
It's a real gem (:
her recipes are almost foolproof!

The key to brunch for me is the mix of sweet and savory foods. This panini dish definitely walked that line perfectly. I didn’t make the suggested waffles, opting for the sourdough waffles from Nancy Silverton’s La Brea Bakery book. We have been making these waffles for years and I’ve never had better. In a nod to the recipe, I added some maple syrup to the batter and it was actually really great. I will definitely be adding syrup to this batter in the future. The final dish was really interesting. I liked the punch of mustard that was slathered onto the waffles. The only thing I would like would be to find a way to make the paninis more crispy. They were pretty soggy.

For my MetaTheme, I went for the classic brunch cocktail, a Bellini. I liked this recipe because it wasn’t overly sweet or syrupy. The peach puree (had to buy this online because the peaches here aren’t very good at the moment) was nicely tart. I added a splash of simple syrup to sweeten it up a little. Next time I think I will go for some Cava instead of Prosecco so it has a built-in sweetness and there is no need for added sugar.

Breads from the La Brea Bakery is also very good.

I'm not a very big cookbook person, but I have a couple that I really like:

Cooking for Geeks

Baking: From My Home to Yours

With both, I like the way they address cooking/baking, as experimental, and encouraging people to make substitutions or try different things. The writing styles are very different, but they both seem to have that core value.

First, let me say congrats! You have an oversupply on what is arguably the most versatile food known to man! Eggs are hands down my favorite food, so I’m a little jealous.

As far as what you can do with them, I think the better question is: what CAN’T you do with them? Jokes aside, take a look at this website for a mere 47 different ways you can prepare eggs.

Additionally, if you’re more of a recipe book type, this may suit your fancy.

Lastly, if you’re into gardening, eggshells are great for composting. Or, with Easter coming up, you can find a more creative way to use eggs in their entirety.

Happy cooking!

Not a show, but I'd recommend the book, The Science of Good Cooking. I'm like you, I prefer to know the whys so I can grasp the concepts of which ingredient does what so I can adjust recipes as I like. This is a fantastic book that does exactly that. For instance, they'll run experiments and show you how much baking powder helps bread dough rise vs. baking soda. Then they'll combine both and show you images of how well each of those three loaves rise.

That's just one example, the book is full of useful stuff like that, plus recipes. Both the book and the show Salt Fat Acid Heat also approach cooking that way.

The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart is my number one recommendation for bread. Im also a big fan of Tartine Bread by Chad Robertson. His first book, Tartine is also great btw. I would skip out on Tartine Book No.3 though which seems to have too many errors for my liking. Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish is also one of the better bread baking books out there.

For general baking, im a big fan of Bouchon Bakery. And one book that will surely help you improve as a baker and I highly recommend you cook through is The Art of French Pastry by Jacquy Pfeiffer. Its like a pastry arts class in a book. I am actually cooking my way through this. If you have a serious sweet tooth, Momofoku Milk Bar by Christina Tosi will probably be what you're looking for. And as someone else recommended, the Baked books are all great.

For cakes, it has to be The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Bernanbaum. This is probably the best cake book of all time. I would supplement this with Toba Garrett's Professional Cake Decorating book.

For pies, my favorites are Four and Twenty Blackbirds and Hoosier Mama. One that I haven't tried but am planning to buy is First Prize Pies. If the book lives up to their reputation, it should be an excellent book.

For plated, more ambitious desserts, I like Payard Desserts. I refer to this when I want to impress company.

what's new? cupcake
Kind of unfair for you to use the idea and not credit the source huh?

I'll try to remember to dig it up when I get home, but I'm going to a concert tonight and liable to forget, so PM me tomorrow if I don't get it to you by then.

It was the first ice cream we've ever made and it comes from a cookbook written by the owner of our local bakery cafe: Joanne Chang - Flour: Spectacular Recipes from Boston's Flour Bakery + Cafe

I did some research about how to get the best ice cream consistency out of a home ice cream maker (we have the KitchenAid attachment), so I used a lot of the process suggestions from Cook's Illustrated.

If you are wanting to get into bread here is the book I bought:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1607748657

Walks you through all kinds of different breads and methods.

This is my go to recipe. It's based on the 5 Minute Artisan Bread recipe. It's a stupid simple recipe that always makes amazing bread.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1624144292/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Well if your standard is "generally don't care for eggs if they're less cooked than a soft omelet" then you have no context of the complexity of an egg.

Maybe you should read Michael Ruhlman's
Egg: A Culinary Exploration of the World's Most Versatile Ingredient

https://www.amazon.com/Egg-Culinary-Exploration-Versatile-Ingredient/dp/0316254061