The 30 Best Baking Books for Beginners in 2023
Today we will talk about The Best Baking Cookbooks for Beginners to Read in 2023.
Baking isn’t about pleasing taste buds or just enchantment. It also helps you to learn more about the baking cookbooks step by step and gives you the maturity needed to enhance your baking.
Baking the perfect cake, pastry, or sweet treat is part art, part science. Achieving baking greatness requires a balance of quality ingredients, technical precision, and loads of passion.
But often the missing ingredient for many home bakers is the right cake cookbook to guide their way.
With countless cake books on the market, how do you know which are truly the best to help you bake like a pro?
Should you go for a classic reference tome, a book from a celebrity chef, or a glossy option full of mouthwatering photography?
To cut through the noise and determine the very best baking books available, we knew rigorous testing was required.
This guide shares the journey behind selecting the very best baking books.
You’ll discover insights into cookbook testing, see highlights of the top 30 books, and learn which one our team agreed is the winner for any home baker to have in their collection. Let’s get ready to bake!
Here are a few super simple best baking recipe books suitable for beginners, so you can be sure of your success!
All About Cake: A Milk Bar Cookbook by Christina Tosi
Welcome to the sugar-fueled, manically creative cake universe of Christina Tosi.
It’s a universe of ooey-gooey banana-chocolate-peanut butter cakes you make in a crockpot, of layer cakes that taste like Key lime pie, and the most baller birthday cake ever.
From her home kitchen to the creations of her beloved Milk Bar, All About Cake covers everything: two-minute microwave mug cakes, buttery Bundts and pounds, her famous cake truffles, and, of course, her signature naked layer cakes filled with pops of flavors and textures.
But more than just a collection of Christina’s greatest-hits recipes (c’mon, like that’s not enough?) this book will be your guide for how to dream up and make cakes of any flavor you can think of, whether you’re a kitchen rookie or a full-fledged baking hardbody.
Maida Heatter’s Cakes by Maida Heatter
The first paperback edition of a classic cake collection from Maida Heatter, a James Beard Lifetime Hall of Fame member, is called The Queen of Cake by Saveur magazine.
Cakes are experiencing a renaissance, and the revival wouldn’t be complete without Maida Heatter’s Cakes, available for the first time in paperback.
First published in 1997, Maida Heatter’s Cakes is a “best of” compilation of 175 of Maida’s classic, most beloved cake recipes originally published in her nine baking books. From an ever-so-lighter take on her legendary Queen Mother’s Cake, Maida’s self-proclaimed favorite, to cakes, sticky buns, homemade doughnuts, cheesecakes, muffins, ice creams, and sauces, Maida Heatter’s Cakes offers foolproof recipes for novice and experienced bakers alike presented alongside charming two-color, line-drawn illustrated interiors.
Baking Yesteryear by B. Dylan Hollis
The Best Recipes from the 1900s to the 1980s
A decade-by-decade cookbook that highlights the best (and a few of the worst) baking recipes from the 20th century
Friends of baking, are you sick and tired of making the same recipes again and again?
Then look no further than this baking blast from the past, as B. Dylan Hollis highlights the most unique tasty treats of yesteryear.
Travel back in time on a delicious decade-by-decade jaunt as Dylan shows you how to bake vintage forgotten greats.
With a big pinch of fun and a full cup of humor, you’ll be baking everything from Chocolate Potato Cake from the 1910s to Avocado Pie from the 1960s.
Dylan has baked hundreds of recipes from countless antique cookbooks and selected only the best for this bake book, sharing the shining stars from each decade.
And because some of the recipes Dylan shares on his wildly popular social media channels are spectacular failures, he’s thrown in a few of the most disastrously strange recipes for you to try if you dare.
A few of Dylan’s favorites that are going to have you licking your lips and begging for more include:
- 1900s Cornflake Macaroons
- 1910s ANZAC Biscuits
- 1930s Peanut Butter Bread
- 1940s Chocolate Sauerkraut Cake
- 1950s Tomato Soup Cake
- 1970s Potato Chip Cookies
Baking Yesteryear contains 101 expertly curated recipes that will take you on a delicious journey through the past.
With a larger-than-life personality and comedic puns galore, baking with Dylan never gets old. We’ll leave that to the recipes.
Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish
The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza
There are few things more satisfying than biting into a freshly made, crispy-on-the-outside, soft-and-supple-on-the-inside slice of perfectly baked bread.
For Portland-based baker Ken Forkish, well-made bread is more than just a pleasure — it is a passion that has led him to create some of the best and most critically lauded breads and pizzas in the country.
In Flour Water Salt Yeast, Forkish translates his obsessively honed craft into scores of recipes for rustic boules and Neapolitan-style pizzas, all suited for the home baker. Forkish developed and tested all of the recipes in his home oven, and his impeccable formulas and clear instructions result in top-quality artisan breads and pizzas that stand up against those sold in the best bakeries anywhere.
Whether you’re a total beginner or a serious baker, Flour Water Salt Yeast has a recipe that suits your skill level and time constraints: Start with a straight dough and have fresh bread ready by supper time, or explore pre-ferments with bread that uses biga or poolish.
If you’re ready to take your baking to the next level, follow Forkish’s step-by-step guide to making a levain starter with only flour and water, and be amazed by the delicious complexity of your naturally leavened bread.
Pizza lovers can experiment with a variety of doughs and sauces to create the perfect pie using either a pizza stone or a cast-iron skillet.
Flour Water Salt Yeast is more than just a collection of recipes for amazing bread and pizza — it offers a complete baking education, with a thorough yet accessible explanation of the tools and techniques that set artisan bread apart.
Featuring a tutorial on baker’s percentages, advice for manipulating ingredient ratios to create custom doughs, tips for adapting bread baking schedules to fit your day-to-day life, and an entire chapter that demystifies the levain-making process, Flour Water Salt Yeast is an indispensable resource for bakers who want to make their daily bread exceptional bread.
Simple Cake by Odette Williams
Everyone has a favorite style of cake, whether it’s citrusy and fresh or chocolatey and indulgent. All of these recipes and more are within your reach in Simple Cake, a love letter from Brooklyn apron and bakeware designer Odette Williams to her favorite treat.
With easy recipes and inventive decorating ideas, Williams gives you recipes for 10 base cakes, 15 toppings, and endless decorating ideas to yield a treat — such as Milk & Honey Cake, Coconut Cake, Summer Berry Pavlova, and Chocolatey Chocolate Cake — for any occasion.
Williams also addresses the fundamentals for getting cakes just right, with foolproof recipes that can be cranked out whenever the urge strikes. Gorgeous photography, along with Williams’s warm and heartfelt writing, elevates this book into something truly special.
More Than Cake by Natasha Pickowicz
Natasha Pickowicz is a creative force in the world of baking. Her pastries are uniquely delicious and surprising. She’s picked up three James Beard Award nominations for her time as a professional pastry chef.
Her buzzy bake sales for Planned Parenthood and other nonprofits have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Now she shares her recipes and baking know-how in a debut cookbook brimming with the energy, passion, joy, knowledge, and spirit of generosity that define her work.
The recipes are fresh and uncomplicated, drawing on the author’s Chinese and Californian heritage. She pairs nectarine and miso in a tarte tatin and makes a layer cake with olive oil, mascarpone, and fennel.
Black cardamom gets tucked into pecan sticky buns, and galettes go savory with kabocha squash. Brown butter is the secret to irresistible buckwheat chocolate chunk cookies.
And she’s a born teacher. Of course, pastry requires a real focus on detail and technique, but the author is here at every step with invaluable tips:
- underneath meringue;
- boil your plum stones to extract even more plum flavor;
- look for “first-press” yuzu juice;
for the flakiest pie dough, first freeze your butter, then use a grater to get perfect shreds.
More Than Cake means baking to bring people together. It calls on you to prioritize pleasure. As the author writes,
“Dessert is beyond simple calories and nutrition. . . . It spreads delight in a way that no other kind of dish can. This is something I think people really need — it’s not optional.”
It’s a philosophy to live by.
Snacking Cakes by Yossy Arefi
In Snacking Cakes, the indulgent, treat-yourself concept of cake becomes an anytime, easy-to-make treat. Expert baker Yossy Arefi’s collection of no-fuss recipes is perfect for anyone who craves near-instant cake satisfaction.
With little time and effort, these single-layered cakes are made using only one bowl (no electric mixers needed) and utilize ingredients likely sitting in your cupboard.
They’re baked in the basic pans you already own and shine with only the most modest adornments: a dusting of powdered sugar, a drizzle of glaze, a dollop of whipped cream.
From Nectarine and Cornmeal Upside-Down Cake and Gingery Sweet Potato Cake to Salty Caramel Peanut Butter Cake and Milk Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Cake, these humble, comforting treats couldn’t be simpler to create.
Yossy’s rustic, elegant style combines accessible, diverse flavors in intriguing ways that make it easy for kids to join in on the baking, but special enough to serve company or bring to potlucks.
Whether enjoyed in a quiet moment alone with a cup of morning coffee or with friends hungrily gathered around the pan, these ever-pleasing, undemanding cakes will become part of your daily ritual.
Cake Decorating for Beginners by Rose Atwater
Decorating cakes at home is easy and fun, thanks to Rose Atwater’s step-by-step guide. Rose started her “accidental cake business” in late 2009 with more than 20 practice cakes she made in the 6 months leading up to her brother’s wedding.
By the time he tied the knot in 2010, her prototypes turned into a steady stream of real orders.
Over the past 11 years, she has gone on to decorate more than 1,500 cakes for her blog, Rose Bakes. She shows you primer recipes and techniques in this comprehensive book!
You’ll learn basic recipes and how to choose the right equipment. After you’re comfortable with the basics, you’ll master different techniques to decorate cakes for any occasion, from weddings to baby showers to birthdays.
Inside, you’ll learn the fundamentals of cake decorating with:
- A list of essential equipment and tools, easy and straightforward recipes, introductory techniques, and troubleshooting tips for common problems.
- Step-by-step instructions to decorate with frosting, piping, fondant, and chocolate.
- 10 tutorials featuring photos and detailed instructions that will guide you from conception to creation.
Get the skills you need to decorate cakes like a pro with Cake Decorating for Beginners.
Le Grand Cours de Patisserie by Eddie Benghanem
Highlights of this book:
The techniques and recipes from scratch to becoming a dessert master are revealed! The book contains more than 500 recipes, making it the most comprehensive and rich French dessert book on the market.
Reason for recommendation:
1. The whole book covers everything from meringues, cakes, and puffs, to biscuits, ice cream, candies, chocolates, various breads, etc. It is an indispensable red book for learning about desserts.
2. 500+ recipes, starting from the basic selection of flour, sugar, and baking tools, to basic folding techniques, chocolate tempering methods, water bath methods, etc. Each technique is equipped with detailed step diagrams for readers’ reference. study.
Opera Patisserie by Cedric Grolet
Highlights of this book:
It is the second work of Cedric Grolet, the author of “Fruit”! The 100 pastry recipes in the book are all the signature bread and desserts of the author’s new store OPERA!
Reason for recommendation:
1. Cedric Grolet tries a more unique approach and reduces the production steps as much as possible, so as to be closer to the product itself, its texture, freshness, and taste.
2. The 100 types of pastries include: sweet pastries at 7 a.m., various pastries at 11 noon, quickly assembled desserts and frosted fruits at 3 p.m., and bread staples at 5 p.m. All recipes are made using seasonal ingredients, and the pastry-making process is simplified as much as possible, breaking the code of pastry-making.
