cover image Baking from the Heart: Our Nation's Best Bakers Share Cherished Recipes for the Great American Bake Sale

Baking from the Heart: Our Nation's Best Bakers Share Cherished Recipes for the Great American Bake Sale

Michael J. Rosen. Broadway Books, $29.95 (296pp) ISBN 978-0-7679-1639-4

Inspired by the annual fundraising bake sale of Share Our Strength, a nationwide anti-hunger organization, this volume contains 100 recipes for cookies, brownies, cakes and other sweet treats, contributed by an impressive array of 54 American culinary standouts. Rosen (Midnight Snacks; Cooking from the Heart) convinced such well-known pastry chefs as Francois Payard, who launched Manhattan's Restaurant Daniel with Daniel Boulud, and nationally renowned dessert teacher Maida Heatter to supply recipes for their enticing versions of bake sale fare. A biography of the contributing chef accompanies each recipe, along with tips for making the recipe bake-sale friendly, should that, in fact, be the goal. Easy-to-follow entries range from indulgently homey, like Joanne Chang's Homemade Oreos(TM), to intriguing, like Jimmy Schmidt's Black Walnut Pound Cake with a Ginger-Black Pepper Glaze. This is a warmly rendered, appealing collection.