Organizing Baking Recipes

From cooking tofu to sauteing egg plant, I’ve been building up quite a few skills in the kitchen with different ingredients thanks to this handy collection of vegetarian cookbooks.  I was starting to have problems with my baking projects.  Namely: all of the cookies and baked goods I was making were coming from random places.  I would jot down ingredients and simple instructions or print off pages only to lose them or leave them in the wrong country.  I feel kind of silly to say, “I can’t bake X because my recipe is in America.  Or behind the bookcase.  I’m not sure.”

So at Martin’s suggestion, I began searching for the perfect baking book.  It’s been over a month, and guess what.  I think I’ve got one.  We really like The Craft of Baking.  Not only do the authors, Karen DeMasco and Mindy Fox, teach you how to bake different items, but they also challenges you to reinvent the recipes.

Take this scone recipe for example.  The left page is all about making chocolate chip scones.  The right page includes guides for changing the recipe and understanding the core ingredients – kind of like a “how to” combined with a “how to do it yourself”.

I thought I’d pass our good find on to you not just because it’s a book I like but because investing in a baking book has seriously cut down on a major paper problem for me.  I’m also using a binder with clear protector sheets for all of the different blog recipes I try. This way I have a baking source that I know yields good results just when I need them.  And as you probably noticed… I kind of like to make up and alter personal projects as I go.  It yields some of the best creative results.  Now I’m doing it with baked goods and don’t have to worry about collapsing cake.  Baked goods aren’t so flexible as tofu after all.

Now it’s your turn.  Are you a rule breaker in the kitchen?  Or maybe you can whip up your family’s favorite foods without a single measuring spoon.  Then again, maybe not.  Any baking books we should all know about?  How ever you roll in the kitchen, you’ve gotta let us know.  We’re starting to get a cookie craving around here… any suggestions…?