cover image Good Old-Fashioned Cakes

Good Old-Fashioned Cakes

Susan Kosoff. St. Martin's Press, $9.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-312-02922-7

Never mind that you don't need another recipe for Lady Baltimore cake or marble pound cake--this splendid volume abounds with enticements. Kosoff, coauthor of Cooking with Five Ingredients or Less offers directions so lucid and comprehensive that when she says her yellow layer cake never fails, she's believable. Introductory material generally is standard but solid, with a few novel tips on packing cakes to mail, making a fruitcake easier to cut, or using a plastic bag both to cook and apply a decorative glaze. Amateurs will find recipes well within their abilities. A lemon poppy-seed cake here deserves the best china and a good Darjeeling. A zucchini-almond loaf cake made with whole-wheat flour provides a welcome alternative to the flood of end-of-summer zucchini breads. Cupcakes flavored with cocoa and topped with sweetened cream cheese, chocolate chips and peanuts will lure the younger set when pistachio cheesecake is served to the adults. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Aug.)