cake is life
I love to read cookbooks, especially by my favorite chefs. With some cookbooks, I keep some tabs or Post-It notes nearby, so I can mark the pages with the recipes I want to try out. I can’t do that with a Dorie Greenspan book, because there are just too many tabs to go back to. I tried to do that with her cookie cookbook, and there are so many flags. And since I like cake even more, this whole book is just one big flag for me. I want to try it all.
These are 100 recipes for cakes, but with all the possibilities that Greenspan offers up, there are so many more than just 100 cakes here. These cakes come from Europe and America, past and present, traveling and childhood. The chapters are organized by types of cakes, so there is a chapter on loaf cakes, on Bundts, on small cakes, even a chapter on salty cakes (which feature savory flavors). There are cakes for holidays, like a sweet potato loaf cake with marshmallow topping or a gingerbread or cranberry Bundt cake for Christmas.
Most of these cakes are perfect as snacking cakes, but there are ideas for elevating them for special occasions, as well as an entire chapter on add-ons like ganache, buttercream frosting, pudding, soaking syrups, and whipped cream. There are classic yogurt cakes, olive oil cakes, chocolate cakes, and even Madeleines. And Greenspan shares her treasured favorites throughout, like the Rum-Raisin Visiting Cake; Berry Yogurt (Loaf) Cake; Grandmothers’ Honey (Loaf) Cake; Almost Maida Heatter’s Buttermilk Lemon Bundt; The Devil’s Chocolate (Bundt) Cake; Bill’s Carrot Cake, the Sheet Cake Edition; and Charlotte Russe Shortcakes.
I have been a big fan of Dorie Greenspan and her cookbooks for many years. She started her cookbook career working with Julia Child, and she is still devoted to recipe development and testing. She includes stories with each recipe, and I love getting a glimpse of a favorite Parisian restaurant or a granddaughter’s birthday celebration. Each cake comes with its own gorgeous illustration, which makes it easier to visualize each finished recipe. But keep in mind that each cake comes with its own gorgeous illustration, which made my mouth water from the start to finish.
Many of these recipes need only simple ingredients—flour, eggs, milk or yogurt, sugar, citrus or nuts or fruits. But Greenspan knows how to get the most out of each ingredient, so these cakes are filled with flavor. I can hardly read more than a few pages before I want to dash to the kitchen to try something or I need to pull out my grocery list on my phone to add the ingredients for another. Dorie’s Anytime Cakes is a book I will buy in several formats, the hardcover to curl up on the sofa with, to read like a novel and make delicious plans, and the ebook, so that I can still see my favorite recipes once I’ve inevitably spilled enough things on the hardcover to glue those pages together. This is a book I will bake from and refer to and give as a gift for decades to come. It is an instant classic, and a perfect present for anyone wanting an accessible cookbook for everyday cakes.
Egalleys for Dorie’s Anytime Cakes were provided by Harvest through NetGalley, with many thanks, but the opinions are mine.
