Bake smart Sweets and secrets from my oven to yours

Food editor, baker, and cookbook author Seneviratne whips up mouthwatering treats that will keep readers enthused about baking or simply make them drool over the numerous buns, cookies, custard-infused delights and more that pop and glisten on these pages. "Core" recipes for laminated dough, rough puff, meringue, custards, crèmes, frangipane, and sweet yeasted dough stand out in chapters centered on the essential ingredients of baking: butter, sugar, eggs, flours, and yeast. This neat subdivision enables bakers to peruse recipes based on whether they're more in the mood for enriched-dough breads (think apricot-cardamom cinnamon swirl potato bread, butterscotch brioche suisse) or twists on classic butter-rich cookies (buckwheat walnut linzers and masala chai shortbread with prunes and tea glaze) or are feeling in a nutty mood for the likes of raspberry pistachio bostock and gianduja rugelach. Although Seneviratne admits that baking should be "smart," meaning that the rules do matter to some degree, she comforts readers by advising that it's okay to bake imperfectly--the results will still be delicious.

Right from the introduction, it's clear that Seneviratne's book aims to clear up some misconceptions about baking--mainly that it's overly complicated or not conducive to the experimentation and creativity that some people associate with cooking. From there, her recipes are divided into five broad categories that are further broken into eight more straightforward sections: core recipes, cookies and bars, cakes, pies and tarts, pastries, yeasted breads, quick breads, and, funny enough, desserts. The core recipes section contains instructions for baking's most challenging staples, such as galette dough, pâte à choux, and crème Anglaise--essential recipes and techniques that can be built upon for the other bakes in the book. The other recipes spans from basics, such as chewy chocolate chip cookies and passion fruit and pineapple upside-down cake, to more creative treats, such as gianduja rugelach and apricot cardamom buns; the recipes are varied enough that all readers are sure to find a new favorite. The recipes are not simple, and many involve quite a few ingredients, but Seneviratnegives helpful tips to make the process easier. VERDICT Seneviratne (The Joys of Baking) offers bakes with inventive twists, presented alongside mouthwatering images that will encourage even the most hesitant of bakers.--Whitney Bates-Gomez