snack attack
When Yossy Arefi wrote her cookbook Snacking Cakes, she taught a lot of wannabe bakers that it doesn’t take much to whip up a quick cake. It doesn’t take a lot of time. It doesn’t take a lot of ingredients. It doesn’t take a lot of equipment. Baking can be quick, simple, and delicious. You can bake a cake while the kids are napping, on a weeknight, for a quick Saturday breakfast, or as a late night snack. Now she’s back with more tasty bakes in Snacking Bakes.
She starts out with cookies, a classic baked treat and the thing a lot of us learned to make first (I know I did). There are some classics, New Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies, Thick and Chewy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies, Do-It-All Salted Butter Shortbread, Monster Cookies. But with just a couple of extra ingredients, you can also bake up Soft Grapefruit Cookies, Almond Thumbprints, Malted Chocolate Cookies, or Thin and Crispy Maple Espresso Cookies. There are even some more savory cookies, like the Salt and Pepper Olive Oil Shortbread.
Next up are bars, brownies, and bark. Again, there are some classics like the Chewy Cocoa Brownies, Loaded Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars, Peanut Butter Blondies, or Pink Cookie Bars. But she also gets creative with flavors and has Banana Nut Blondies, Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bars, Coffee-Glazed Molasses Bars, or Date and Pistachio Coffee Bars.
And then it’s all about the cakes, with flavors like the Chocolate Chip Snickerdoodle Cake, Cornmeal Carrot Cake, Nutty Parsnip Cake, Mixed-Berry Tahini Cake, or Brown Sugar Peach Cake. She also includes recipes for her Cheesy Jalapeno Corn Bread and Everything Bagel Bread with Scallions, if you’re looking for a more savory bake to make and share.
As someone who bakes in a small kitchen, Arefi is mindful of using as few dishes as possible. The cookie recipes can be baked on two sheet trays at one time, or you can bake half and freeze half, to pull out and bake as you want. She offers up flavor substitutions throughout the book, and encourages bakers to change things up with glazes or spices or extra vanilla.
While many of her recipes are gluten-free, dairy-free, or vegan, she also presents suggestions to make more of the recipes friendly to vegan chefs using a flour substitute (and she mentions the ones she’s had the most luck with). But that last chapter offers up an idea of pure genius, as you can take just about any of these bakes and turn them into ice cream sundaes with her recipes for Salty Caramel Sauce, Hot Fudge, or Saucy Strawberries and the ice cream of your choice.
I love cakes, so when I saw Snacking Cakes come out, I was thrilled. I love the idea of quick, delicious unfussy cakes I could whip up with a limited pantry or limited time. And I’m just as happy with Snacking Bakes, with its wider variety of bakes. I also love that they are smaller batches, so they’re not tempting me from the kitchen counter for too long, but they are big enough to share. Those Triple-Chocolate Olive Oil Brownies would be the perfect end for a quiet dinner with friends, and the Berry Bran Cake would be lovely for a quiet Sunday morning with a hot beverage and a good book. This would be a perfect gift for beginner bakers or fans of baking competition shows who want to get in the kitchen but don’t know where to start. Here’s where you can start—with a handful of ingredients, one bowl, one pan, this cookbook, and a hunger for snacks.
Clarkson Potter provided me with a free copy of Snacking Bakes (with many thanks); the opinions are my own.
