Beautiful Baking [Hardcover]

From the back cover:-

'.....Perfect for those who have never baked before, as well as for the more advanced cook, Jane's new book contains everything you need to enable you to bake 40 delicious home-made cakes, breads and biscuits.
Beginning with a 'master class' for making the perfect, 'foolproof Victoria Sandwich' - the method on which many other cake recipes are based - Jane goes on to share some of her favourite recipes.
She has included traditional British classics such as Madeira and Eccles cakes, chocolate delights such as Black Forest Gateau and Squidgy Chocolate Cake, as well as a fabulous New York Cheesecake, several easy tray bakes, beautiful biscuits and some modern variations of her own.
Beautiful Baking is full of the essential information you need to be a success at baking, combined with tempting recipes, truly inspiring colour photographs and Jane`s personal tips and friendly advice.'

Pastel paperback covers open to 96 high quality shiny pages split over 4 main chapters:-

* cakes
* biscuits
* bakes
* icings

with an introduction, a guide to equipment, a section on ingredients and an index.

The cake section begins with that aforementioned 'master class' recipe for 'my perfect victoria sandwich', step-by-step, followed by three ideas for decoration. From the recipe intro:-

'Experienced bakers can skip the detailed instructions for this recipe and not bother to look at the pictures, but for those just starting I hope this can work as a kind of 'master class' to give you the confidence to tackle the thousands of wonderful cake recipes from all over the world that begin the same way.
Over the years I have tried just about every combination of ingredients and methods for what most of us call a 'sponge'........
This recipe is the culmination of all my attempts and is absolutely delicious and foolproof..........'

The remaining recipes follow on, starting with that 70's favourite - 'Black Forest Gateau'!

Each recipe is well laid out with an opening note in typical Jane Asher style, the title in lower case, the list of ingredients on the left-hand side along with the number of servings, plus the clearly numbered method on the right.
A full colour photograph accompanies every recipe in the main bake sections. Decorating ideas are also included.

My favourite recipe, to date, is the 'Soaked Lemon Cake' from pages 36-37 (one of three lemon cake recipes in the book) but I have found that this one works equally well with orange juice, too!
Either flavour is simply delicious with the recommended drizzle of melted dark chocolate on the top!

A taste of the other recipes within:-

* chocolate fridge cake
* devil's food cake
* fairy cakes
* marmalade cake
* shortbread
* quick chocolate biscuits
* macaroons
* gingerbread
* american brownies
* malted fruit loaf
* perfect scones
* foolproof meringues
* easy banana, walnut and peanut butter loaf
* royal icing
* chocolate ganache

Useful tips throughout, along with handy 'shortcuts', written with Ms Asher honesty, e.g.:-

'truly last minute do-not-panic-Christmas-cake':-

If you've completely forgotten to make a Christmas cake, keep calm. As long as you can find a corner shop or a supermarket open and buy yourself a ready-made cake then all is not lost, and you can produce something that will look very pretty and may well pass for home made.
This uses jam, sweets and ribbon (the kind of things you may well have sitting around the house at Christmas time), and can be achieved in minutes.......'
(plus a cocktail stick and a little bit of brandy or whisky or orange juice.......)

'sugar paste ('roll-out' icing') and fondant':-

'I used to make all my own sugar-paste when I first started decorating cakes at home, but, now that there are such good ready-made packets, I honestly don't think it's worth your while. You can buy it in every different colour that you might need and it'll save so much time and effort for exactly the same result.'

Super book, with only a slight criticism, perhaps... that being, for me, the pale orange smallish text for the lists of ingredients which can be hard to read in limited light.

I think I'm a bit on the fence about this one...

I like the book recipe-wise, it has some good basic recipes and some sound advice. It's a great place to start if you have never baked before. But if you want something a bit special or some inspiration then I wouldn't pick this book.

I think style wise it's a bit of a bland book. The photography isn't particularly wow, and all in all its a bit plain.

For a couple of pennies more I would buy Annie Bell's Gorgeous Cakes, it has practically the same content and advice as Jane's book but has recipes for some really interesting and beautiful cakes.

This book was great. The recipes are easy to follow and the finished products turn out exactly as they should. Will always use Jane Asher recipes for my home baking products from now on. Could have done with more recipes: or maybe I'm greedy!:oP BRAVO!!