Product Description

Everyone dreams of a home in which the smells of baking are part of everyday life. Warm bread at breakfast, homemade Florentines for tea, Tomato and Tapenade Tart for supper and Dark Muscovado Brownies are the kind of treats that make for happy occasions with family and friends. Sue Lawrence is often called the 'Queen of Baking'; her passion for the subject, and her knowledge of Scottish cookery, are legendary. In her new book, she includes easy recipes for the new and now such as Ciabatta and Ricotta Citrus Cake, as well as the old favourites like Victoria Sponge. Catering for every kind of cook, be they an Aga-lover or a bread-machine devotee, this is a must for everyone's kitchen shelf.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #33309 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Review
'The queen of home baking... Sue Lawrence's Book of Baking" is full of homely, sensible, practicable recipes that cover all the winter bases... But just when you think you've got this book neatly pigeon-holed, it springs some surprises... Clarissa Dickson Wright said, "Sue Lawrence's recipes always work. She is a particularly fine baker." I concur.' -- Time Out 20071112

About the Author
Sue Lawrence writes a regular column for Scotland on Sunday and Scotland magazine, and has written for Sainsbury’s magazine, Woman & Home, Country Living and BBC Good Food magazine. She can be seen regularly on British and Australian television talking about Scottish food and traditions. She is the author of Sue Lawrence’s Scottish Kitchen, A Cook's Tour of Scotland and the award-winning book Scots Cooking.

Customer Reviews

Highly recommend this book to all potential bakers!
This is an excellent and very thorough book that covers all the essential recipes that are associated with baking. With beautiful photos to accompany the text it is hard to stop yourself wanting to whip up some of the food there and then! Sue Lawrence consistently produces books of a high calibre and this is no exception. The recipes range from the traditional to the more innovative and each are accompanied with a story about the origins of the recipe or an anecdote associated with the recipe which in themselves are a joy to read. Too often i find that recipe writers simply plunk down the recipe with no introduction to it, with this author's book you come away knowing not just recipes but also their background and a bit of the author's life. If we are being honest not all of us will have time to produce every recipe in the book - as much as we would like to! - but with this book it is enough to enjoy it as a good read, standing alone from the cooking element of it.

In conclusion i would urge that people buy this book so as to rediscover the baking skills they didn't know that they had or even just to have something very comforting to read at bedtime. All in all a great book.

Absolutely foolproof recipes!
This is not one of the popular books that shows up in the top sellers of the baking section (like Mary Berry or Nigella Lawson for example) and I just recently discovered it wanting to extend my baking book collection a bit ... and what a wonderful choice it was! I am SO pleased I bought it - even though it is far shorter than most of the "baking bibles" out there it is such a gem to have in your kitchen simply because everything works.

Sue Lawrence's book contains sweet and savoury recipes (about 30% are savoury ones), with precise and clear instructions making sure that they work for you. In fact, I am so impressed with it that this has become my new favourite after years of using the Leith's Baking Bible. Perhaps it just suits the individual needs of my oven so well, but I have never had a baking book so spot-on with the oven temperatures and baking times - not once have I had to adjust anything or leave it in for a little longer or cover it with foil to prevent the top burning.

Among the wonderful recipes I have tried were the asparagus and porcini mushroom parmesan tart (the only savoury one I have tried as most contain meat and I'm a vegetarian). That was incredibly tasty and well worth the price of the porcini mushrooms. In the sweet section, there's a chapter on tarts which includes a lovely lemon tart with a chocolate pastry - amazing! The lemon and poppy seed muffins were the most tangy and lemony I have ever eaten, having tried at least 5 other lemon - poppy seed recipes. And the date cake with fudge topping is simply awesome!! There is a wonderfully moist carrot cake and also a crumbly and light recipe for mince pie pastries which contains ground almonds, making it slightly different to ordinary mince pie pastry and so much tastier. I also recently made the very chocolatey brownies, which were wonderful, and they were the very first brownies I ever made which did not sink in the middle....always so disappointing when they rise beautifully in the oven but somehow always manage to sink just before you take them out! And if you're making the brownies, you might as well use them to make the brownie cheesecake, with luscious molten toffee poured over the brownies before covering with cream cheese mixture. Delicious :-) And although Sue says this cheesecake is incredibly rich, I had no problem consuming the whole cake in 2 days (with a bit of help from my partner). It may be rich, but you'll be coming back for more in no time, so best stored in the fridge where you can't see the temptation!

I am new to baking with yeast but have managed to bake wonderful Chelsea buns as well as Finish cardamom buns from Sue Lawrence's book as well. There's a wholemeal bread with walnuts that does not need any kneading but tastes great and a delicious rosemary and raisin loaf. Her recipe for ciabatta-type olive oil loaves is unbeatable and very close the traditional Italian bread, but is easy to knead by hand and you don't need a bread machine. I was very hesitant to try the olive oil loaf as all other bread books recommend doing this in a bread machine because the dough is so runny, but Sue's recipe works wonders by hand.

I have baked about one third of the recipes and all have without exception been wonderful and am so glad to have discovered this wonderful book. Among the recipes I have not yet tried are: New York cheesecake, mini pecan pies, sour cream and raisin pie, German apple cake, almond cake and passion cake with carrot and banana. I can't wait to try them all because the success I've had in the past with this book makes me want to bake everything from here. If you want easy to follow, foolproof and delicious recipes, this is one of those books. I really wish Sue would write another book of baking and give her readers more of her delectable recipes.

Highly recommeded, but don't be fooled by the "healthy" chapter
I initially borrowed this book from the library, but when I made nine recipes in the first week it became clear I needed my own copy. Since then I've baked from it repeatedly, with delicious results every time. The book is quite broad in scope, with savoury recipes featuring as heavily as sweet ones, and almost everything is just begging to be tried (the exceptions are a couple of cloyingly sweet childhood treats - the author clearly has a sweeter tooth than I do!). My only complaint is that the "healthy" section is nothing of the sort - Ms Lawrence seems to think that the inclusion of oats in a recipe negates the unhealthiness of large quantities of butter and sugar. Still, if you accept that baking is best enjoyed in moderation, this book is hard to fault.