Let’s Bake – A Must for Every Baker’s Collection
With the arrival of September, thoughts turn to baking whether it’s an apple pie, or holiday cookies, or to gather recipes for the upcoming family gatherings. A new book has joined the kitchen bookshelves for those who want to bake for the purpose of gift-giving. Gail Sweeney, author of Let’s Bake: Over 100 Dessert Recipes for Gift Giving, is sharing her tried and true, and delectable, recipes that celebrate the “pleasure of giving and sharing food with others,” as she writes. Before we get to some of the mouthwatering choices, we asked Gail about what inspired her to pursue the dessert gifting idea and put them all into this lovely colorful hardcover.
One Bowl Chocolate Cake
“People always ask me what got me into baking. I think it started as a child…as long as I can remember I always loved food and enjoyed a great curiosity about it,” she says. Her desire to share food with others soon followed. She remembers finding a five-dollar bill in the street and immediately purchasing candy bars for all her friends. Then came a more serious approach to it, experimenting with spices, and then hosting dinners with an international flavor. Baking desserts remained her priority because she could “make a vanilla cake more gorgeous than a chicken dinner.”
Cheesecake Brownies
As baking became more and more of a passion, Sweeney who was a school psychologist by day, started a catering company called, Not Just a Cookie, and supplied local bistros and specialty stores with her popular items. And like many other entrepreneurs, the Covid pandemic created an interesting opportunity. As she writes, “through social media and word of mouth, I made it known that desserts would be put out onto a bench in the parkette across from where I was living, a certain time each day.” She felt that if she announced it, people would come and take them. What surprised her was not that the treats were taken, but that the taker would leave something: a pen, a bottle opener, even the gadget to check the air in her tires. By engaging in these small acts, she believes, kindness becomes exponential. Let’s Bake is a culmination of her life’s work doing what she loves.
Pumpkin Loaf
Asked about any formal training, she shares that she was a big fan of the baking shows that showed how to make a particular kind of cookie or pastry. “I learned a lot from those shows, like the techniques of working with pie crusts or combining compatible flavors,” she says. She also read Julie Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and if she had a new dessert when out for dinner, she’d try at home until she got the flavors just right. As Covid dragged on, she writes, “I decided to write the book having been inspired by the positive reactions [of her baking] and with time on my hands due to shut-downs and social restrictions”
Whether you’re an experienced dessert baker, or someone new in the kitchen, everyone will get something out of Let’s Bake. The opening pages provide helpful baking tips that only those with years of experience would know. Bringing eggs to room temperature, for one, rolling out dough, how to freeze cakes and pies, and the techniques for mixing dry ingredients, and preventing a soggy bottom pastry. Sweeney adds ideas for prettying up a dessert plate using garnishes of fresh fruit, a chocolate drizzle, or chopped pralines. We learn that the thumbprint cookie is the official start of the holiday season, and on her recipe page for it, she notes that rather use her thumb for the imprint, she’ll use the rounded end of the potato peeler, or the bottle cap end from a bottle of beer. Baking with Sweeney’s book by your side is like having your own Julia Child in the kitchen with you.
Angel Food Cake
A few of the selections that catch the eye include The Light as Air Angel Food Cake which Sweeney says, “if it were not for the fact that the batter takes 12 egg white, I would make this cake once a week.” For the upcoming season, consider the Pumpkin Loaf with Maple Glaze and Maple Pecans, which Sweeney makes for her annual Fall Community Street Party. If kitchen space is an issue, there’s the One Bowl Decadent Chocolate Cake, and if you need a popular item that will sell out at the school bake sale, Sweeney offers the Cheesecake Brownies. These transport well, she adds, and when placed in airtight containers, will keep four days in the refrigerator or one month in the freezer.
She continues to be inspired by the effect that a plate of treats can have on a room. “Every month I would bring a huge tray of goodies into the school where I worked, to be shared with friends and colleagues,” she says. “I was always surprised at how a plate of homemade cookies or brownies could change the atmosphere in a staff lunchroom and how people would suddenly connect with each other over a few special moments of sharing a homemade treat.”
Happy Baking!
Let’s Bake
Gail Sweeney
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Top: Gail Sweeney (Courtesy of Gail Sweeney and and Michael Sweeney, CSC)
