the dame of desserts

Anyone who has watched the first several seasons of The Great British Bake Off needs no introduction to this woman. Mary Berry has been an angel for beginning bakers, sharing her knowledge and inspiration through her television shows and her cookbooks for decades. Her Baking Bible has been a resource since it was first published in 2009. Now, it’s been revised and updated, with many new recipes and with the recipes written in a way that’s more accessible for American readers.

If you’re looking for one of those cookbooks where the author shares long stories about trips they took or cookies they baked with grandparents or how they are inspired by a single vanilla bean, then this is not the cookbook for you. There is not a lot of extra exposition. But what this cookbook does bring is a lot of classic tested recipes for all the basics of British baking.

Berry starts by telling bakers about her favorite equipment and ingredients, and gives some cooking tips to help set us up for success. And then she jumps right into classic cakes, starting with the GBBO staple Large All-in-One Victoria Sandwich Cake, with strawberry jam and whipped cream in the middle. Then there are pages and pages of cakes, from the classics to spiced to cupcakes and celebration cakes. There are cakes for snacking on, cakes for birthday parties, and cakes for once-in-a-lifetime celebrations. And of course there are cakes for holidays, including several types of fruitcakes for Christmas.

But there is are also chapters on crackers and cookies, tarts and pastries (no soggy bottoms there, you can be sure), breads, buns and scones, hot puddings, soufflés and meringues, and cheesecakes. Just to try to get your mouth watering as much as mine, there are recipes for a Rainbow Cake, The Very Best Shortbread, Iced Animal Crackers that you can make with your kids, Tarte Tatin, Chocolate Eclairs, English Muffins, Special Fruit Scones, and Lemon Meringue Pie.

For anyone wanting to find more traditional British recipes, you’ll find bakes like a Battenberg Cake, Eccles Cakes, Fast Mincemeat Christmas Cake, Cornish Fairings, Bakewell Slices, Deep Treacle Tart, Irish Soda Bread, Bara Brith, Bath Buns, and Banoffee Pie.

Mary Berry’s Baking Bible is absolutely packed with recipes that could take a beginner or intermediate baker to an expert level. There are over 250 recipes, and they are broken down into manageable steps, so even the more challenging recipes seem doable with enough patience. But there a lot of recipes that have only a few steps until you’re eating something homemade and delicious, so bakers who are just starting out have plenty to practice on, or bakers with just a couple of hours on a weekend or weeknight can create an amazing bake with ease (I’m including baking times in that estimate).

I wish I had a year or so to bake through all these recipes. I would finish the year with so much knowledge and understanding of baking techniques, and I would have a lot more friends, needing to find people to share all those cakes with. But for now I think I will concentrate on that Crunchy-Top Lemon Cake, because it looks like something I could eat almost every day for months.

I’ve received a free copy of Mary Berry’s Baking Bible from Clarkson Potter in exchange for a free and unbiased review, with many thanks.