No problem, and welcome to the baking club! This is a great first recipe to try because it's super easy, and introduces you to a lot of neat stuff, such as browning butter for enhanced flavor & aroma.

Baking is much more of a science than cooking is (which means that you can actually get really nice, consistent results once you figure out how it all works!), but there are still a lot of little "tribal knowledge" kind of details that you have to pick up along the way, like the brown butter trick & the cooling technique (cool on pan, then cool on rack, THEN eat). Especially in the case of getting the final product right, it's difficult not to be impatient because the final result is right there in front of you, haha!

Here are some tips, if you want to dive further into baking:

• Bakers use full sheets; at home, we half sheets (13" x 18", typically just called a rimmed baking sheet)
  
• Pre-cut parchment sheets are the best thing in the universe (works out to like 12 cents per sheet)
  
• Silpats are like reusable parchment sheets, but I actually don't like them for baking because of the way they affect the dough - I actually really like them for flash-freezing stuff on, so if I want to freeze some cookie dough balls to store for later, they peel right off! Amazon makes their own knockoff set for a third the price
  
• Get yourself a Danish dough hook ($15), it makes manually stirring batters & doughs soooooo easy! Works like magic!
  
• My favorite kitchen tool is this ridiculously expensive spoon ($25), which is 110% worth it because it replaces both a wooden spoon & a spatula; it has the strength of a solid spoon, but with the flexible tip of a spatula, so you can do both jobs at once
  
• If you want to instantly increase your baking game, switch to measuring by weight (not cup size, for example, as a cup of flour can vary a LOT when scooping!) by using a kitchen scale; decent ones are $15, but if you'd like to step up to a better model, this is a newer version of the one I have (does ounces, does grams, removes the weight of the bowl before measuring, and has a pull-out display so you can see the number even with a big bowl on top!)
  
• I use these silicone pot holders to put on my countertops under my hot trays
  
  Regarding baking in general:
  
  
• Stella's book Bravetart is absolutely fantastic to work through, very detailed with lots of good explanations for helping you when you're learning!
  
• Create a solid recipe-storage system, so that you don't lose your "keeper" recipes!
  
• Personally, I focus on finding A+ recipes for my personal recipe collection; these ricotta brown-butter cookies are keepers for sure! I have several "the best" recipes that I've stored over the years, such as pancakes, brownies, chocolate-chip cookies and so on...really next-level stuff that makes baking all worth it!
  
• I do a lot of freezer-based storage for ingredients (like chocolate-chips), raw materials (such as cookie dough), and finish products (such as pre-baked mini-loaves)
  
• Baking is great if you like hardware, as you can branch out into electric stuff (hand mixers, stand mixers, food processors, etc.) & various tools (Twinkie pans, mini-loaf pans, baking steels, etc.), plus it all generally lasts a really long time, not to mention lets you make a ton of stuff with it forever & ever - I make everything from incredible homemade pizza to the best chocolate-chip cookies you've ever had to easy mini baguettes at home!
  
• Baking is also a really great creative outlet; check out the no-knead bread scene sometime, for example
  
  Anyway, feel free to ask questions!

The key is salads of all types I think. For breakfast I have brown rice or potato salad or sometimes mashed potatoes if I’m not having reheated oatmeal I make the night before. For lunch I build a sandwhich on Quaker rice cakes or Mission or some other white corn tortillas that are labled gluten-free. “Gluten-Free wraps” are all super expensive and terrible. They crack when rolled or folded as opposed to the cheap corn tortillas sold as a regular product... you want the mainstream corn tortillas that are gluten free... and those are terrible too if you don’t heat them in a dry pan or at least in the microwave for thirty seconds before using them. For dinner, soup and salad usually with some cheese or meat in the salad. Homemeade salad dressing tastes better then bottled though. Also find some wheat flour free corn bread recipes. Cornbread is easy and the crumbs can be used as bread crumbs for meatloaf or breading chicken etc.

This book helped me a lot. It is recipes for singe/double serving gluten-free bread, muffins, pancakes, wraps, etc cooked in the microwave. https://www.amazon.com/Gluten-Free-Five-Minutes-Recipes-Muffins/dp/0738214620/ I have it in both softcover and kindle on my phone. I use 1/4 cup egg whites from carton since they keep well in the fridge but when I was vegan for several years I used a blend of ground flax, chia and psyllium as a replacement for the egg or tapioca gel which you make with irc a teaspoon of tapioca starch mixed in three tablespoons of water and microwaved for 15 seconds to make an egg-like gel. I buy apple sauce in snack-pack size to use in these recipes. And I have played with the recipes by swapping some or all of the rice flour with combinations of teff, buckwheat, potato flakes, ground walnuts, etc.

Also a big help are the thin and wide rice noodles from the Asian food aisle at the supermarket. Also glass noodles. Asian food like Vietnamese, Thai, and some Korean often features no gluten and uses little meat.You can adapt the recipes by using gluten-free Worcestershire sauce in place of fish sauce and HP sauce or lime juice and brown sugar in place of tamarind. You must buy tamari sauce or gluten-free soy sauce since high quality traditional soy sauce contains wheat. If you can’t get rice vinegar then cider vinegar will do. Vietnamese spring rolls (check on YouTube) are a cheap convenient alternative to sandwhiches. As is gimbap which is a Korean sushi roll... I bought a wood sushi mold on Amazon that presses a rectangular log of rice and filling that is easier to wrap in nori sheets (see on YouTube). I make the sushi rolls ahead of time and wrap the log in cling wrap and refrigerate (sushi rice doesn’t get weird when cold like other rice) and slice it when ready to eat. My fillings are vegetables and roast beef slices or canned tuna or salmon made with spicy mayo. I sometimes use a spicy peanut butter dipping sauce instead of tamari.

I also use spiralized vegetables in place of pasta. My favorite is golden beet but that is rarely available at my supermarket so I mainly use carrot. Potato will stay crispy if boiled with vinegar in the water... I soak them a bit then boil and store. These are good with tomato sauce or buttered and sprinkled with parm. The carrots are better with Asian sauces. I bought a cheap Oxo hand spiralizer and a discounted Joyce Chen spiralizer that does angle hair cut rather than a big tabletop spiralizer. Spiralized red beet salads are terrific. My favorite is angle hair of red beats with balsamic, dijon mustard and honey with walnut pieces.

But rice and potatoes are my base. Short grain brown rice is a good base for topping with stew or gravy and brown basamtti is good for stir fry cooking. I cook both in the microwave. Actually I cook everything in the microwave since I live in a house where everyone else eats wheat. I also have a toaster oven I use to crisp up the stuff I make in the microwave. A standard for me is a fake stirfried rice I make by adding sauce and vegetables to the rice and cooking them together as a one pot meal. An other quick meal I make is a microwave pot pie with mashed potatoes instead of gluten free pastry crust usually though you can make a quick pastry using rice flour and margarine that cooks in the microwave. Also I make microwave scalloped potatoes and a lasagna/tomale in the microwave made with gluten-free tortilla chips or cooked slices of potato. You can make a “white gravy” and use crumbled tofu in place of cheese but you will want seasoning like season salt or Italian spices. This is good with gluten-free breakfast sausage in it. I cook mainly in a StoneWave microwave cooker pot or a bigger wide onion soup cup with a vented lid. I also make a poutine with potatoes cooked 4 minutes in the microwave, sliced into thick sticks and then cooked 30 minutes in the toaster oven.

When I was vegan I made oat/rice milk spiked with a little non-dairy creamer. Now I use powdered coconut milk from the Carribian aisle at the super market if I’m not using cow’s milk. If you miss cheese you can make a nacho cheeze by boiling 2 parts potato and one part carrot then draining and blending with a bullet blender or immersion wand but it gets so sticky you will burn out the motor if you don’t add some water... to this you add nutritional yeast for the cheezy flavor. I have also added dijon mustard, miso paste, lemon juice, mirin, etc to give a bit of tang to it. Adding sriracha makes a nice spicy cheeze sauce. Vegan sour cream and cream cheeze can be made with ground unsalted cashews but they are not cheap. Cashews make the richest nut milk too, more like cream. I had to cut mine with oats or rice. For cheap meat substitute you can use canned chickpeas or look up on YouTube how to make vegan chicken from tofu... you can press extra firm tofu then bake it and then marinate it in chicken broth or vegan broth and then cook it as you would chicken. For me this is cheaper than real chicken. I used to make tofu ‘ham’ and tofu ‘beef’ using broth and tofu “cheese slices” by marinating tofu slices in nutritional yeast and miso etc. Look up vegan feta cheese made of tofu. That is the easiest fake cheese.

One last thing... for rice flour, nutritional yeast, tapioca etc. look for a Bob’s Red Mill display at the grocery store or health food store or check on Amazon. Red Mill also makes gluten-free mixes for hot cereal, pizza dough, pancakes, brownies etc. but I just buy the plain gluten-free flours to use in microwave “baking”. It's a cool company, when Bob turned 80 he said he had enough money and gave the company to the workers irc.

For the piping techniques week, I made a simple vanilla cake with Swiss meringue buttercream. I just went with a super simple edge on the top and bottom because I’m way out of practice. It’s a bit rough in some spots, but I was pretty happy considering I haven’t done much piping in a while.

---

Classic Yellow Layer Cake

Recipe from BraveTart: Iconic American Desserts by Stella Parks
Makes one 8-by-4½-inch layer cake

Ingredients

• 3⅓ cups | 13½ ounces bleached cake flour, such as Swans Down
  
• 2 sticks | 8 ounces unsalted butter, pliable but cool—about 65°F
  
• 2 cups | 14 ounces sugar
  
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
  
• 1 tablespoon potato flour (not potato flakes or starch), such as Bob’s Red Mill
  
• 1 teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt (half as much if iodized)
  
• ½ cup | 5 ounces egg yolks, preferably organic (from about 8 large eggs), brought to about 70°F
  
• 4½ teaspoons vanilla extract
  
• 1⅓ cups | 13 ounces milk (any percentage will do), brought to about 70°F
  
  

  Directions
  

  
  

1. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and preheat to 350°F. Line two 8-by-3-inch anodized aluminum pans with parchment and grease with pan spray (the cakes will brown more and rise less in 2-inch pans). Sift the flour (if using a cup measure, spoon into the cup and level with a knife before sifting) and set aside.
   
2. Combine the butter, sugar, baking powder, potato flour, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Mix on low to moisten, then increase to medium and cream until fluffy and light, about 5 minutes, pausing to scrape the bowl and beater halfway through. With the mixer running, add the egg yolks one at a time, followed by the vanilla.
   
3. Reduce speed to low and sprinkle in one-third of the flour, followed by a third of the milk. Alternate between the two, allowing each addition to be roughly incorporated before adding the next. Once it is smooth, fold the batter with a flexible spatula to ensure it’s well mixed from the bottom up. Divide between the prepared cake pans, about 26 ounces each.
   
4. Bake until the cakes are golden and firm, about 40 minutes (or 210°F). A toothpick inserted into the center will emerge with a few crumbs still attached, and your fingertip will leave a slight indentation in the puffy crust. Cool until no trace of warmth remains, about 2 hours.
   
5. Loosen the cooled cakes from their pans with a knife, invert onto a wire rack, peel off the parchment, and reinvert. Trim the top crust from the cakes with a serrated knife (this helps the cake better absorb moisture from the frosting). Place one layer cut side up on a serving plate. Cover with a cup of frosting, spread it into an even layer with the back of a spoon, and top with the second layer, cut side down. Finish the top and sides of the cake with the remaining frosting, sculpting it into swoops and swirls with the back of the spoon.
   
6. Under a cake dome or an inverted pot, the frosted cake will keep for up to 24 hours at room temperature. After cutting, wrap leftover slices individually and store at room temperature for up to 2 days more.
   
   

   Swiss Meringue Buttercream
   

   
   Recipe from Serious Eats
   
   

   Ingredients
   

   
   

• 6 ounces egg whites (2/3 cup; 170g), from 5 to 6 large eggs
  
• 11 ounces plain or lightly toasted sugar (about 1 2/3 cups; 310g) (see note)
  
• 3/4 teaspoon (3g) Diamond Crystal kosher salt; use half as much if iodized
  
• 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
  
• Scraped seeds from 1 split vanilla bean (optional)
  
• 20 ounces unsalted butter (5 sticks; 565g), softened to about 65°F (18°C)
  
• 1 teaspoon (5ml) vanilla extract
  
• 1/4 teaspoon almond extract (optional)
  
  

  Directions
  

  
  

1. Fill a wide pot with at least 1 1/2 inches of water, with a thick ring of crumpled tinfoil placed on the bottom to act as a "booster seat" that will prevent the bowl from touching the bottom of the pot. Place over high heat until steaming-hot, then adjust temperature to maintain a gentle simmer. Combine egg whites, sugar, salt, cream of tartar, and vanilla seeds (if using) in the bowl of a stand mixer. Set over steaming water, stirring and scraping constantly with a flexible spatula, until egg whites hold steady at 185°F (85°C). This should take only 10 to 12 minutes, so if mixture seems to be moving slowly, simply turn up the heat. Once ready, transfer to a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment and whip at high speed about 10 minutes, until meringue is glossy, stiff, and cool to the touch, around 90°F (32°C).
   
2. With mixer still running, add butter, 1 or 2 tablespoons at a time. Initially, the volume of the meringue will decrease dramatically; it may even seem soupy along the way, but as the cool butter is added, the mixture will begin to thicken and cool. In the end, buttercream should be thick, creamy, and soft but not runny, around 72°F (22°C). Mix in vanilla extract and almond extract (if using) on low speed until well combined.
   
3. Use buttercream right away, or transfer to a large zipper-lock bag, press out the air, and seal. Buttercream can be refrigerated for up to 2 weeks and frozen for up to several months. (The main issue with longer storage in the freezer is odor absorption, not spoilage.) Rewarm to 72°F and re-whip before using.
   
4. Troubleshooting: If warmer than 74°F (23°C), the buttercream will be soft and loose; pop it in the fridge for 15 minutes and re-whip to help it thicken and cool. If colder than 68°F (20°C), the buttercream will be firm and dense, making it difficult to spread over cakes and slow to melt on the tongue, creating a greasy mouthfeel; to warm, briefly set over a pan of steaming water, just until you see the edges melting slightly, then re-whip to help it soften and warm. Full troubleshooting guide and video here.

I love how much thought you put into the details! It turned out great!

I'm not quite sure why I feel like plugging this book, but since you love the details, want to learn, and maybe some traditional desserts, I really like Stella Park/Bravetart's new dessert cookbook. Local libraries might have it too. I think it'd be an awesome foundation for an aspiring baker and I wish I could just read it and bake through it faster. She is a really approachable pastry chef (who is very active on social media and will comment if you post pics of her things you've made on Twitter!). She loves digging into the history and the science of why things work (3" tall cake pans vs 2" give a better rise, etc) and has some awesome recipes for homemade oreos, cakes, pies, you name it! She also posts on SeriousEats.com with some great articles. Happy baking!

I've been purchasing keto cookbooks for my library system and have been reading through them as they come in. Here's a little list:

Sweet & Savory Fat Bombs by Martina Slajerova
https://www.amazon.ca/Sweet-Savory-Fat-Bombs-Delicious/dp/1592337287/ref=tmm_other_meta_binding_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1480350212&sr=1-1
Haven't made anything from it yet, but I have this one checked out right now. I am going to try the recipe for their Toasted Coconut Cups today. The ingredient lists seems semi reasonable and it's great for squares, chocolate, spreads, and little treats if you're into that kind of thing.

The KetoDiet Cookbook by Martina Slajerova
https://www.amazon.ca/KetoDiet-Cookbook-Grain-Free-Sugar-Free-Starch-Free/dp/1592337015/ref=sr_1_1_twi_pap_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1480350335&sr=1-1&keywords=ketodiet+cookbook
Of all the books I've looked at so far this one seems the most reasonable and helpful. It's actual recipes instead of just a "wrap bacon around asparagus, cook" kind of thing. Plus, there's pretty pictures of the food and I like pictures in my cookbooks. I have it checked out right now and was going to give their recipe for zuch lasagna a try as a first recipe.

Quick & Easy Ketogenic Cooking by Maria Emmerich
https://www.amazon.ca/Quick-Easy-Ketogenic-Cooking-Recipes/dp/1628601000/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1480350438&sr=1-2
I had high hopes for this one, but I didn't like the look of it at all, save for a few recipes on slow cooker pulled-pork / pulled-chicken kind of thing. It was lots of "wrap bacon around asparagus, cook" that I mentioned above--the sort of food that folks on keto maybe already know. I did snap a few pictures of recipes I'd like to try, but it wasn't one I am considering purchasing, like the two above.

It can be hard to wade through the crap on pinterest and two sites I've found helpful for bang-on recipes are these:
http://www.ibreatheimhungry.com/
http://www.ditchthecarbs.com/

Hope this is helpful. Happy shopping <3

35 grams of salt :)

In baking one should ALWAYS weigh ingredients, the most important tool in a bakeshop is a scale. Your final product will taste the EXACT same every time if everything is weighed. For home use you just need a little scale, I use this little guy at home.

Most home bakers hate weighing eggs and find it ridiculous so just keep this simple rule in mind. 1 large egg = 50g. So 2 large eggs for every 100g needed.

The reason for weighing literally everything over using cups, teaspoons and other volumetric amounts is definitely well worth reading into as well. Pretty much every book worth its weight will be done in with weights instead of volume and will have a section explaining why. But essentially with baking its chemistry, everything is done to cause a specific reaction and that reaction is done to a certain degree in the end product.


EDIT: If you want some cookbooks I made a post previously about what I recommend for people depending on what they are into making, so I'll post that up in here

Bibles

• Baking Bible
  
• Cake Bible
  
• The Pie and Pastry Bible
  
  Bread
  
  
• Beard on Bread
  
• Bread
  
• Bread Baker's Apprentice
  
• Flour Water Salt Yeast
  
• Josey Baker Bread (I just genuinely like this guy tho lol)
  
• All of the Tartine books (just get all of them, Chad is the man when it comes to bread)
  
  Caramels/Candys/Ice Cream
  
  
• Ample hills creamery
  
• Artisan caramels
  
• Chocolates & Confections
  
• The Sweet Book of Candy Making
  
• Sweet Cream And Sugar Cones
  
  Jack of all trades
  
  
• Baked Occasions
  
• Baker's four seasons
  
• Flour
  
• Flour Too
  
• Model Bakery Cookbook
  
• Momofuku Milk Bar
  
• Ovenly
  
  Pastry/Pies
  
  
• The Art of French Pastry (this is one of my all time favorites)
  
• Creative Eclairs (whole set is great for beginners to intermediates)
  
• First Prize Pies
  
  Textbooks
  
  
• Baking and pastry
  
• On Baking
  
  
  I'm sure I am leaving out a bunch of great ones but if I had to suggest just 1 to anyone it would DEFINITELY be The Art of French Pastry. Best for somebody who has done basics already and looking to try a little more. Even as a professional baker I find myself coming back and just reading the little spots like how he burned himself on his caramel. Great, great book!

With me and my fiance, I cook the meals but she likes to make/bake the sweets. It's a pretty good system for having fun cooking in the kitchen together, especially on the weekends when you have more time to make more extravagant things and can really treat yourselves to something special. If your fiance has a sweet tooth and would maybe get into that, I'd check out Bravetart. Got a lot of basic things but also has a lot of interesting things in there that are fun to make.

1. Churn time and temp ranges are wide because different bases freeze at different rates, different machine have different mechanisms, etc. The best advice I can give is to start checking at 15 minutes with a new recipe, expect the next round is be roughly the same total churn time. Depending on your machine and freezer, consider putting the entire machine inside your freezer. You get lower, more consistent temperature and less noise.
   
2. Ratios are very important. The basic ratios have to do with water, fat, and sugar. Without rabbit-holing too far, think of a basic base recipe that you like (say, vanilla) and think of the variations from there. As in, if you're making caramel, the sugar in the caramel you make counts towards the total sugar in the base. It gets a bit more complicated with things that change freezing temperature, like alcohol, but that's the strategy.
   
3. Water is your problem there. Most fruit is too watery and will freeze solid. Smaller pieces will just give you icy bits. Apples do well dried or cooked, so consider adjusting your recipe. Common solutions for adding fruit flavor are:
   
   1. cooking some/most of the water out of a fruit (changes the flavor)
      
   2. Steeping fruit in the cream or custard base (hot or cold, 1 - 24 hours depending)
      
   3. making a flavored fruit and sugar syrup for the base or swirl (adjusting the water and sugar accordingly)
      
   4. using freeze-dried fruits (powdered first, then added to the base - my favorite
      
4. A few things. Are you making sundaes or ice cream? That is, are the other flavors options or integral? You can certainly make wild syrups for topping more easily than integrated ripples. For ripple effects, the best results are from layering fully churned base and jam-consistency swirl repeatedly. If you add to the churning base, it will incorporate and you will not see ripples. The exception, for me, is stracciatella, which I use in place of chocolate chips for things like "mint chip" (fresh mint, good dark chocolate stracciatella works great). For that I add for the last few turns of churning.
   
   Lebovitz's book is wonderful and you should start there.
   
   
   I also like Stella Parks' BraveTart, which includes, but is not limited to, ice cream.

My number one tip for baking is to measure ingredients by weight, not volume! It's more accurate, easier, and more convenient than using measuring cups. A cup of flour can weigh anywhere between 4.5 to 6 ounces depending on how it’s scooped, and that kind of variance can make a big difference to whether your baked goods turn out well vs. hard, dry, and tough due to having extra flour in them. So that could be a potential reason for past baking projects turning out to be hockey puck-esque.

A lot of American recipes only include volume measurements, but some good online sources that do include weights are the King Arthur Flour website and Serious Eats. Weights are also used in BraveTart by Stella Parks and everything by Rose Levy Beranbaum. I would recommend using those sources (or others that are trustworthy) as you're starting out, rather than finding recipes via Pinterest or random blogs.

Temperature is another factor that makes a big difference in baking. Ingredients that need to be at room temperature will not work the way they should if they’re cold. Trying to cream together cold butter and sugar will produce a dense cake instead of a light, fluffy one, and trying to make a frosting with cold cream cheese or butter will produce a clumpy frosting with chunks of unblended cream cheese/butter.

Likewise, ingredients that need to be cold will not perform the way they should if they’re warm or at room temperature. For instance, if pie dough gets too warm, the butter in the dough will melt and turn everything into a sticky mess. It’ll also obliterate the layers of butter and flour/water that produce a light, flaky texture for your crust.

So a change in seasons, which you might not ordinarily think about in this context, can really affect your baking and require adjustments. Serious Eats has a writeup on winter baking adjustments, and King Arthur Flour has a blog post on winter-to-summer adjustments for yeast baking.

For the most precision possible, you can use an instant-read thermometer to check the temperature of your ingredients, but you can do fine without one. Just make sure to plan ahead and warm up/cool down your ingredients as needed.

Oven temperature also makes a difference. Most ovens are not properly calibrated, so even if you think you’re baking at the right temperature, your oven may run hot or cold. Use an oven thermometer to check! Baking at too low a temperature will produce a gummy, pale cake, while using too high a temperature will produce a dried-out husk. If a lot of your baking efforts have turned out burned, that might indicate your oven runs hot.

Follow cues, not suggested times, when baking a recipe. Obviously, use the times as a guideline, but it’s the cues that really matter. So for instance, if a recipe says to bake a cake for “one hour, or till a toothpick comes out clean,” start checking before your hour is up. If a toothpick comes out with some crumbs attached at the one-hour mark, leave your cake in the oven till the toothpick comes out clean. (This is another reason your baking projects might have turned out burned - if your oven runs hot and you only start checking right at the time given in the recipe instead of beforehand, then naturally things will get burned.)

Finally, any beginner should follow recipes as written and not experiment with any modifications that aren’t suggested. For instance, if you think a cookie recipe looks too sweet and reduce the sugar, that won’t just make the cookies less sweet, it’ll also make them softer and puffier (sugar makes cookies browner, crisper, and increases spread). If you do a 1:1 substitute of whole wheat for all-purpose flour in a bread recipe, you’ll end up with bread that’s drier and denser (whole wheat absorbs liquid more than all-purpose and contains bran, which cuts through gluten and prevents it from rising as much). So until you have a solid understanding of how different ingredients work, just follow each and every instruction in a recipe as-is (which, as you might have noticed from my points on weight/temperature above, isn't always as simple as it might seem!).

To wrap up this extremely long comment - for information on "correct fail safe methods," the King Arthur Flour blog and Serious Eats both have good tutorials and tips, and Rose Levy Beranbaum's books have a huge amount of helpful details on, well, everything. Good luck!

I'm really enjoying Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook and Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Recipes for Two (which I'm in fact looking at right now). They have some good information at the beginning about how to use a slow cooker, and what sort of food you should have on hand (building your pantry).


My best advice is to build a pantry of common food items (herbs & spices, sauces, etc), and then start practicing cooking based on simple recipes. If she's encountering terms that she's unfamiliar with, encourage her to Google them. Most people don't start out being good cooks; they just keep practicing and experimenting they're making tastier and more sophisticated meals.


Also, encourage her to watch as you cook, and as you're cooking, explain what you're doing and why you're doing it.

Rich Roll PlantPower Cooking (ultra athlete) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnGd4addK0o&list=PLD9BA27E8F50AA586

Vegan Richa - http://www.veganricha.com/

Sweet Potato Soul - http://sweetpotatosoul.com/ https://www.youtube.com/user/SweetPotatoSoul

Hot For Food - http://www.hotforfoodblog.com/ https://www.youtube.com/user/hotforfoodblog

The Edgy Veg - https://www.youtube.com/user/stillcurrentstudios

The Happy Pear -https://www.youtube.com/user/happypeargreystones

The Vegan Zombie - https://www.youtube.com/user/ZombieGate

Vegan Richa's Indian Kitchen: Traditional and Creative Recipes for the Home Cook

Vegan Richa's Everyday Kitchen: Epic Anytime Recipes with a World of Flavor

Hot for Food Vegan Comfort Classics: 101 Recipes to Feed Your Face

Thug Kitchen: The Official Cookbook: Eat Like You Give a F*ck

Chloe's Vegan Italian Kitchen: 150 Pizzas, Pastas, Pestos, Risottos, & Lots of Creamy Italian Classics

Chloe's Vegan Desserts: More than 100 Exciting New Recipes for Cookies and Pies, Tarts and Cobblers, Cupcakes and Cakes--and More!

Martha Stewart, Dorie Greenspan, and Rose Levy Berenbaum are my go-to's for classic recipes with none of the low fat/no sugar/no gluten stuff.

Any classic French basic pastry recipes like for pastry cream, choux, croissants, etc, are always going to be chock-full of butter and sugar and the good stuff, too. Check out Eugenie Kitchen on YouTube for some very easy, classic French recipes (by a very sweet Korean woman).

Here are my favorite baking cookbooks:

Rose Levy Berenbaum - The Baking Bible

Rose Levy Berenbaum - The Cake Bible

Dorie Greenspan - Baking: From My Home To Yours

Martha Stewart - Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook

Martha Stewart - Martha Stewart's Cookies: The Very Best Treats to Bake and to Share

Smitten Kitchen is also great for desserts that are a bit fancier, but still classically rich/traditional ingredients.


I LOVE BAKING.

Check out vegan cook books. I really enjoy bowls on bowls. I got the book for my girlfriend and she has tried out some recipes with success. She didn't cook much (besides eggs) until she had the book. It provides sound guidelines.

You could always add meat or sub other ingredients, but it's cheaper to not buy meat. Also, the learning the correct amount to season is essential for delicious cooking in my mind.

Best of luck!

No prob! And here's the book: https://www.amazon.com/BabyCakes-Gluten-Free-Sugar-Free-Recipes-Talked-About/dp/0307408833

Not all of the recipes are gluten free but the ones that are, are insanely delicious. The minimalist baker blog is also really good when it comes to gluten free recipes :)

I love buying gifts for people and often want to brag about the cool stuff I got and how good of a gift giver I am, but that's kind of tacky sooo... glad for this space.

• Husband: Switch
  
• My parents: Tickets to the Masters (I also bought golf balls and I'm writing YOU'RE GOING TO THE MASTERS on them and boxing them up individually. I am SUPER jazzed about this one.)
  
• His mom & her partner: Custom beach sand bracelet (mom) and bonsai kit (partner)
  
• His dad & his wife: Book (dad) and lotion candle + monogrammed scarf (wife)
  
• His mom's mom: See-through bird feeder and birdwatching book
  
• His dad's parents: Ornaments (representing their dog and their golden anniversary) (grandma) and a cork bow tie (granddad)
  
• His sister: Paper sunflower bouquet
  
• His brother: Sake making kit
  
• His brother's partner: Planet-themed bath bombs
  
  Everyone else is getting some homemade peach preserves and pecan bread.

How Baking Works by Paula Figoni really helps break how individual ingredients react to heat and to other ingredients in baking.

Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Formulas by Jeffrey Hamelman is the bible of bread baking. There are other bread books out there, and many of them are good, but if you only buy one this one should be it.

The Pie and Pastry Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum is a great home baker's guide to traditional baking, but almost every bakery I've worked in had a copy of this laying around. It's a great reference, and the fact that every recipe is broken down into weights makes it possible to convert many of her recipes into professional production, with tweaks.

Bouchon Bakery by Thomas Keller is a great supplemental baking book and worth checking out.

I agree that "How To Cook Everything" is a good reference guide for complete beginners and those with gaps in cooking knowledge.

It might be a bit over your head at this point, but if you truly want to understand cooking and what's happening when you do it try "On Food And Cooking" by Harold McGee.

For Asian you might like...

"Every Grain Of Rice" by Fuchsia Dunlop (or any of her books)

"Japanese Soul Cooking" by Tadashi Ono

"Ivan Ramen..." by Ivan Orkin (Good for ramen and other japanese-ish food.)

"Momofuku" by David Chang (Really good mix of general Asian flavors)

Other books that might interest you:

"Irish Pantry" by Noel McMeel

"The Lee Bros. Simple Fresh Southern" - Matt Lee and Ted Lee

"Real Cajun" by Donald Link

"Authentic Mexican" by Rick Bayless

"Fabio's Italian Kitchen" by Fabio Viviani

For Vegetarian try anything by Alice Waters or David Tanis.

I always fall over myself to recommend Bravetart by Stella Parks to people who haven't baked much. The recipes are as close to foolproof as possible. The ingredients and directions are very specific so, provided you follow them, you'll get a good result. Like, a really good result. I can't think of anything in that book that won't knock your socks off, and there are tons of variations - including gluten free versions of basically everything.

Some of the stuff is easier, and some of it's harder - the latter mostly by dint of taking longer or having more steps rather than needing learned technique.

I'm a good cook, though not a talented baker by any stretch. Before that book, most of my tries at baking ended up with me swearing at dough, but that book has let me make all sorts of totally delicious stuff for work bake sales, friends' birthdays and just for my own face on a rainy day.

Nothing particularly good in this bundle.

If you want take up cooking and treat yourself, I would give my highest personal recommendation to The Food Lab and Bravetart. They are great because they go over technique and fundamentals and provide a good base that you can build from once you get more comfortable in the kitchen. Once you hit that point The Flavor Bible is also a great resource for experimentation.

> microwave cooking for one

If anyone can't find it at Goodwill, it's available on Amazon.

Other great microwave cooking books:

250 Best Meals in a Mug: Delicious Homemade Microwave Meals in Minutes

125 Best Microwave Oven Recipes

A Man, a Can, a Microwave: 50 Tasty Meals You Can Nuke in No Time

I made Stellas chocolate chip cookies - the brown butter version and used toasted sugar. These might be the best cookies I've ever eaten. 😳

My fam loves these cookies and they were devoured the day that I baked them.

Recipe I used was from her book! I will keep recommending friends to buy this book because I've seen a lot of success with it.

buy her book!

Edit: added link to purchase book (and only just figured out how to hyperlink on mobile 😯)

This is a great book

Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Recipes for Two (NYM Series) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1558323414/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_GDSJwbMEQW2A0

I checked the e book version out from the library and the recipes were really great and pretty healthy.

I got a cookbook, cooking with crohn's and colitis. http://www.amazon.ca/How-Cook-Crohns-Colitis-delicious/dp/1581825927

It was a pretty good base. Basically what I learned is that I just can't eat garbage. Some of the recipes are pretty good but some are kind of over the top and take a lot of time to prep so tweak it to what suits you best

Sure! A few of our favorites:

Cranberry Oatmeal

Basic Bran - I sub in soy milk and egg replacer.

And the cookbook "150 best vegan muffin recipes" has a ton of good ones - especially the 10 grain muffins, lemon poppyseed muffins, Mexican dark chocolate muffins, and banana blueberry muffins.

We're pretty muffin obsessed.

Donald Link's Real Cajun is fantastic. John Besh's My New Orleans is also excellent albeit a bit more involved. I find myself going to Link's more often, but for really sexy recipes, Besh has some real winners.

Buy Kris Holochek's The 100 Best Vegan Baking Recipes. Every single recipe in here is just perfect and my omni friends can't tell it doesn't have eggs. Once, I brought some of the red velvet cupcakes to a meeting and people were going back for seconds and thirds! One of my friends was shocked to see me eating one because he thought I had given up veganism... nope! The cupcakes were vegan!

You will never feel like you need eggs or milk again with this book :)

I'm so glad you've decided to make the switch!

Absolutely! Garden & Gun is such a great magazine and the latest issue is a special edition dedicated to food and recipes.

They actually published a very legit cookbook themselves - here's a link if you're interested:

The Southerner's Cookbook: Recipes, Wisdom, and Stories

I don't know much about savory cooking, but for gluten free baking this book is great: Babycakes

I looked threw this one at B&N last week: Cast Iron: The ultimate book of the worlds most prized cookware . Very impressive.

But a friend of mine once said (last month I believe) "aren't all cookbooks cast iron cookbooks?".

Stella Parks new book for pastry. I haven't read it but if it anything like her serious eats articles it will be what you are looking for. For that matter, Kenji's "The Food Lab" is an excellent resource for savory food. It puts the why and how right out front.

The FAQ on the side bar has a ton of suggestions. Some may be from older posts but worth checking out.

Do yourself a favor and get "[The Pie and Pastry Bible]"(http://www.amazon.com/Pastry-Bible-Rose-Levy-Beranbaum/dp/0684813483). I learned how to bake when I was 8 (great grandparents, grand parents, parents all had bakeries) and I didn't get pie crust down until I was 24. This book is fucking awesome. I still have the copy that my ex-husband got me 15 years ago.

I moved to a new apartment a couple of weeks ago and still haven't finished unpacking the kitchen. Nevertheless, the hazelnut (gluten-free) variation* of Glossy Fudge Brownies from Stella Parks' BraveTart was a wonderful way to christen the oven.

I've made the original version in the past. Both are the best brownies I've ever had.

My coworkers could not stop raving about how moist and decadent they are.

​

*"Replace the all-purpose flour with 7 ounces (1 3/4 cups) hazelnut flour or an equal weight of toasted, skinned hazelnuts pulsed with the cocoa in a food processor until powdery and fine, about 1 minute."

Ah! You're too kind. It's called BraveTart: Iconic American Desserts, you can find it at your favorite local bookstore via IndieBound, at Barnes & Nobel, or Amazon! Hope you enjoy!

I've got a "trio" style set of slow cookers that are about the same size. When I wanted to learn how to use them for meals, I found two books that I really like: Slow Cooking Just For Yourself and Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Recipes for Two. They both offer a wide variety of recipes, both vegetarian and not, and they helped me get used to thinking about ingredient amounts at the right scale for the smaller cookers. Good luck!

I wanted to see the book on Amazon, but it didn’t look like anyone else posted the link. Here it is, if anyone else is interested.

All recipes were from this book, which has a lot of fun bowl meal ideas with creative flavor combinations. The night before last, I had a bowl with homemade seitan satay in a curry coconut peanut sauce, over rice, sauteed garlic/ginger kale, with a side of cucumber salad. Sadly, I didn't get a picture of that one. Another favorite recipe from this book is cabbage roll in a bowl with this amazing pecan/lentil meat. Oh and also the refried bean dip with walnut chorizo. And the white bean beer cheese fondue... omg. It's a good book!

Ranch Dressing: (makes almost 2 cups; salad had massaged kale, celery and shredded carrots)

1 cup raw cashews, soaked

2/3 cup unsweetened plant milk

1/4 cup water

2 tbsp apple cider vinegar

1 tbsp lemon juice

2 tsp onion powder

1 tsp salt

1 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp agave nectar

1 tsp dried parsley

1/4 tsp black pepper

1/8 tsp dried dill

Blend first 9 ingredients until smooth, then mix in dried herbs and pepper.

Cheddar Sauce: (used with 1/2 lb pasta, had some leftover sauce)

1 cup raw cashews, soaked

1 cup water

1/4 cup nooch

1 tbsp tapioca starch

1 tbsp tomato paste

1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

1 tbsp butter

2 tsp onion powder

1.5 tsp dijon mustard

1 tsp salt

pinch of turmeric

Blend everything until smooth. Add some neutral plant milk to thin, if needed.

Roasted Buffalo Chickpeas:

1 15-oz can chickpeas, rinsed and drained

1/4 cup buffalo sauce, plus 2 tbsp

Preheat oven to 375F. Toss chickpeas with 1/4 cup sauce, bake on parchment paper for 15 min. Stir, then bake for 10-15 min more. Add extra 2 tbsp buffalo sauce after removing from oven.

The Pie and Pastry Bible is good. "Pie" is good as well and has less complex (but still great) recipes.

This is my favorite Cajun cookbook. I'm from south Louisiana and I highly recommend it.

I've actually never had an appetizer with gumbo, so I'm not really of any use there. For me, a cup of gumbo is either the appetizer or a stand alone entree. Plus any appetizer recommendation I would think give you would be fried haha. (Fried catfish, crab cakes) Although, you could do spinach and artichoke dip - although I'm not entirely sure that's Cajun.

Don't forget the filé for your gumbo!

These are from the BraveTart cookbook. There’s a similar recipe on the website but it’s not precisely the same. They were delicious!

This is an excellent collection of recipes:
http://www.nolacuisine.com/creole-cajun-recipe-page/

I'm also a big fan of Donald Link's "Real Cajun":
http://www.amazon.com/Real-Cajun-Rustic-Cooking-Louisiana/dp/0307395812/

If she's into desserts, another option is BraveTart by Stella Parks, which has a page or two of history for every single recipe! Got it for christmas and love it

Apple sauce used sparingly can help. I find the addition of a little instant mashed potato flakes can make GF bread much fluffier. A small amount of instant GF oats can make a softer crumb. I have found Earth’s Own oat milk has Gellan Gum in it which was unfamiliar to me but is adding a good rise and light texture to my bread. Rye is a bit heavy, I would add some sorghum or brown rice or teff flour. You probably want a gel of some sort for a yeast bread though I usually don’t bother now. You make a “flax egg” or “chia egg” or “psyllium husk egg”.

Not healthy necessarily but very convienient are the GF bread recipes in https://www.amazon.com/Gluten-Free-Five-Minutes-Recipes-Muffins/dp/0738214620

My everyday sandwich solution is Venezuelan arepas.
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/238510/homemade-arepas/

Jerusalem

Cooking with Loula: Greek recipes from my family to yours

Ideas in food: great recipes and why they work (ma anche Maximum Flavor, degli stessi autori)

Meathead: the science of barbecue and grilling

BraveTart: iconic american desserts (in uscita 15 agosto)

Check out the babycakes cookbook for ideas. Their "sugar free" recipes, btw, usually call for agave nectar. They have substitutions for using regular sugar and water to replace it.

Hobby baker here.

Although his reading level is low, a great cookbook is a must.
My favourite is BraveTart Iconic American Desserts

https://www.amazon.com/BraveTart-American-Desserts-Stella-Parks/dp/0393239861

/r/slowcooking

This book has given me a few good ideas: https://www.amazon.com/Your-Mothers-Slow-Cooker-Recipes/dp/1558323414

You want this cookbook.

https://www.amazon.com/Southerners-Cookbook-Recipes-Wisdom-Stories/dp/0062242415

They have a recipe from one of the places in Nashville. It calls for like 1/2 cup of cayenne pepper. Also, the sauce you put on it contains fryer oil. It was so perverse I had to cook it. Don't tone down the cayenne.

I bought this cookbook a few months ago and really like it. All of the recipes have measurements in Metric and Imperial.

http://www.amazon.com/KetoDiet-Cookbook-Delicious-Grain-Free-Sugar-Free/dp/1592337015?ie=UTF8&keywords=the%20ketodiet%20cookbook&qid=1465320102&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1

BraveTart: Iconic American Desserts available here, for those interested.

Is it from this book?
https://www.amazon.com/BraveTart-American-Desserts-Stella-Parks/dp/0393239861

BraveTart: Iconic American Desserts

http://www.amazon.com/KetoDiet-Cookbook-Delicious-Grain-Free-Sugar-Free/dp/1592337015

> new Bravetart Cookbook

> #new

ANOTHER ONE?!!#@! I MUST HAVE IT. You're not talking about this one, right?

It's from Stella Parks' cookbook, Bravetart: Iconic American desserts

It's Stella Parks' baking book: BraveTart. She's the SE baking guru.

They're referring to this book: https://smile.amazon.com/BraveTart-American-Desserts-Stella-Parks/dp/0393239861/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=3MCXVKNSF59X7&keywords=bravetart+cookbook&qid=1554760772&s=gateway&sprefix=bravetar&sr=8-1

This book is so good. I don't think the recipe is on the serious eats.

not the amazing price your little dipper was, but this is a full fledged mini slow cooker i often use for making small dishes:
 
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008GS8R3K
 
and here is a cookbook specifically for small slow cooker recipes:
 
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1558323414

I just recently bought these 3 cookbooks on amazon.com and so far i've gotten some good ideas. The 3rd one isn't necessarily keto, but many of the recipes are low in carbs and lots of the ones that aren't can be modified. They're all written by keto and paleo food bloggers I follow.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1624141196?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1592337015?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s01

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1624141404?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00