Baking Chez Moi: Recipes from My Paris Home to Your Home Anywhere
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication Date: October 2014
Featured Recipe: Vanilla-Bean Sables
12 Days of Christmas Cookbook Giveaways, 2014:
Day 5, Baking Chez Moi
With her groundbreaking bestseller Around My French Table, Dorie Greenspan changed the way we view French food. Now, in Baking Chez Moi, she explores the fascinating world of French desserts, bringing together a charmingly uncomplicated mix of contemporary recipes (including original creations based on traditional and regional specialties) and drawing on seasonal ingredients, market visits, and her travels throughout the country. Examples are the surprisingly easy chocolate loaf cake speckled with cubes of dark chocolate that have been melted, salted, and frozen (a recipe that she adapted from a French chef’s recipe) and the boozy, slow-roasted pineapple, a five-ingredient cinch that she got from her hairdresser. These recipes show the French knack for elegant simplicity. In fact, many are so radically easy that they defy our preconceptions: crackle-topped cream puffs, which are all the rage in Paris; custardy apple squares from Normandy; and an unbaked confection of corn flakes, dried cherries, almonds, and coconut — a recipe that nearly every French woman knows. Whether it’s classic lemon-glazed madeleines, a silky caramel tart, or “Les Whoopie Pies,” Dorie puts her own creative spin on each dish, guiding us with the friendly, reassuring directions that have won her legions of ardent fans.
Cooks&Books&Recipes Featured Cook Donna:
I have a number of Dorie Greenspan’s cookbooks, so I had pretty high expectations for this one. It certainly didn’t disappoint. The recipes ranged from family dessert to fancy dessert and from simple to serious.
While the instructions on many of the recipes are longer than what you might find in a typical cookbook, it’s not that the recipes are complicated — it’s that they’re very well explained.
There are also bits of quirkiness within the instructions, like the comment that you should cover a cream with plastic wrap so that it doesn’t form a crust, followed by the warning, “Don’t do this before you stick your finger in the cream for a first taste.” Another recipe talks about pricking the dough all the way through and explains that you should hear the “rat-a-tat-tat” of the fork hitting the peel. Comments like these make the recipes much more friendly, even when you’re facing a French tart.
Cooks&Books&Recipes Editors {Dee}:
Written with home bakers in mind, Baking Chez Moi is organized into seven chapters: Plain Cakes; Fancy Cakes; Baby Cakes and Petit Pastries; Tarts and Galettes; Cookies and Bars; Fruit, Creams, Frozen Desserts, and Candies; and Basics. The personal and detailed headnotes transport the reader to Dorie’s kitchen in Paris. And where else would you want to be when baking dessert??
The Cookbook Basics:
Hardcover (8.4 x 10.9 inches)
496 pages, ~200 recipes
About the author: Dorie Greenspan has written 10 cookbooks and won six James Beard and IACP awards, including Cookbook of the Year, twice! She won the IACP Cookbook-of-the-Year Award for Desserts by Pierre Herme and for The New York Times best-seller Around My French Table. She was also named to the James Beard Foundation’s Who’s Who of Food and Beverage in America. She notes that her latest cookbook, Baking Chez Moi, is “filled with recipes for the simple, homey, wonderfully delicious sweets that my friends and I bake at home in Paris.”
Cookbook Giveaway:
We’re giving away a copy of Baking Chez Moi to one lucky Cooks&Books&Recipes reader. Enter below.
{The other 12 Days of Christmas Cookbook Giveaways are listed here.}
Giveaway Notes:
There are six ways to enter the giveaway, but it’s not necessary to do all six entries. Choose whichever one(s) you like, and you’ll be entered in the giveaway. The winner, to be randomly selected and notified by e-mail, must claim the cookbook within 10 days. Giveaway ends on Monday, January 19.
Disclosure: Cooks&Books&Recipes receives books for possible review, though we make no promise that all books received will be featured. We highlight only those cookbooks that we feel will interest our readers. We received no monetary compensation for our review or giveaway.
Bravo! My time in Paris was the best. Looks like a dandy of a cookbook!
knew I’d love this book as soon as I saw that cake on the cover!
This looks like a great cookbook!
This cookbook looks amazing! I would love to check it out!
Thanks for the chance. Sounds like a wonderful book to cook from.
Nice
Since i wont get to paris i might as well cook it
French recipes are one thing that I need a lot of help with. I have not had a cookbook that deals with French recipes so I would really like to have one to help me out in that category
I’d love to try some recipes from this book.
I’ve been wanting this cookbook. I love Dorie’s recipes!
sounds like a great book!
This should be an amazing book!
I borrowed it from the library but now I want to own it.
The cook book looks to be very interesting.
The cake on the front Sold Me.
I love Dorie’s books. This one sounds amazing!
Hanaa recently posted…TBB – Almond Coffee Crisps
I always find French food a bit intimidating…but I bet I could tackle some of these recipes!
I love getting new cookbooks and trying new recipes.
Another classic by Dorie–yay!
DessertForTwo recently posted…Comment on Just Checking In #4…{+cookbook details!} by Lindsay @ The Live-In Kitchen
That cake looks so tasty.
I love French food
I’m sure this book as some wonderful recipes — I’d love to add it to my collection!
I took some French this would be interesting to have!!!^_^
Thanks for the chance! Love French cooking.
sounds yummt
I would love to own a Dorie Greenspan Cookbook. I have heard so many good things about the books and have read so many good articles on Dorie.
This book is on top of my wish list would LOVE to win !
My daughter loves Paris & loves to bake so she would LOVE this!
The cover looks delicious!
I would love to win this & try some new recipes from it!
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I love Dorie’s recipes!
I’m a big fan of Dorie Greenspan, especially when it comes to her baking recipes. This book looks amazing! Thanks.
I have two of Dorie Greenspan’s cookbooks; I refer to them frequently, especially around the holidays.
Who doesn’t love Dorie???
This would be a perfect gift for my daughter!
Looks great!
looks like another great book
I love new cookbooks and have founded a cookbook book club.
This would be a great recipe book to have, I’ll even share it with my daughter-
Looks like a great book.
I’ve always been intimidated by the idea of French desserts. I’d be curious to find out if these recipes really are easy.
Wow, that chocolate cake on the cover…I think that would be the first thing I would make!
I’d love to try the recipes in this new cookbook!
Delicious! Very nice cookbook.
Oh my! This would be fabulous! My husband and I traveled to Italy, Switzerland and France, literally eating our way through….I would love to create that flavor again!