Recent Cookbooks on My Shelf - October-November 2024

Baking Books and Lots of Cookies! - Extra Food Chat with Kath

Welcome to another edition of Extra Food Chat with Kath!

Yes, more cookbooks! There are always more, and I thought you might like to hear more about these new ones specifically before we get to far into the festive season.

As I mentioned in my last lot of cookbook reviews, the theme was ‘I probably don’t need any more baking books, but somehow got new ones anyway’ (in a good way!) - and that is still true for this lot of books!

Mid this year, I was thinking about how I wasn’t sure I needed any more baking books and how I should be more considered about which ones I add to my collection. As it turns out the limit does in fact, not exist when it comes to how many baking books one can, should or needs to have in their collection! You heard it here first! Tell everyone you need to.

All of these books are worth adding to your (and my) cookbook collection, and I am yet to come across a new baking release in the second half of this year that isn’t.

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Ok, on to the baking books!

*Many thanks to Hardie Grant and Murdoch Books for gifting me copies of Desi Bakes and Some of My Best Friends are Cookies respectively.

Desi Bakes by Hetal Vasavada (Hardie Grant)* - This baking book by Hetal of Milk & Cardamon is full of fun and colour. The recipes are inspired by Indian culture, flavours and food, however the techniques used are based in both American and European baking. I would say from an Australian perspective, the style of baking leans more to the American side of things. The book itself and many of the recipes are bright and colourful, and are filled with flavours like cardamom, chai masala, besan, saffron and more.

The colours, shapes and textures of the bakes are also heavily influenced by Indian culture, including commonly used colours and inspiration taken from traditional fabrics. Much of this is translated into the bakes using bright food colouring, biscuit cutters and moulds, plus intricate decorative features such as patterned icings, edible flowers and gold leaf.

Recipes include cookies, cakes, desserts and drinks, with top of my to try list being the Cardamom and Brown Butter Sandwich Cookies (p.95), Passionfruit Shortbread Cookies (p.100) and Salam Pak Spice Cake (p.109).

Some of My Best Friends are Cookies by Emelia Jackson (Murdoch Books)* - I think this has been a highly anticipated release here in Australia, after the success of Emelia’s first cookbook ‘First, Cream the Butter and Sugar’ a couple of years ago. Being an avid baker and already having many baking books in my collection, I was hesitant about whether I needed this latest release. I didn’t gain as much enjoyment and use from Emelia’s first book as many others did. I think it was a combination of being an experienced baker (so not needing more recipes I probably already had in some form or another) and not being interested in some of the book (e.g. choux pastry and macarons, I’m just not as interested in this style of baking).

Emelia’s new book, ‘Some of My Best Friends are Cookies’, has a similar style to her first, like the beautiful illustrated cover, however the focus just on cookies and biscuits engages me more since I do like this type of baking. Emelia has also got a very interesting selection of recipes, sectioned out into fun chapters, and this book doesn’t feel like every other baking book or cookie specific book out there. I have to say there are some similarities in recipes between this and Edd Kimber’s ‘Small Batch Cookies’ which I’ve reviewed below - obviously the specific premise of each book is different, and having similar release dates means this has to be a coincidence. It’s interesting to see how two people, clearly very cookie obsessed, sometimes came to similar conclusions re flavour, but have also taken their cookbooks in very different directions on a similar topic too.

The use of flavour has a nice mix of traditional and different in ‘Some of My Best Friends are Cookies’, and I really enjoyed reading the introductory sections where it is clear Emelia has thought a lot about cookies and biscuits (the difference/similarity between those two terms is also discussed). Recipes I am keen to try include the Chewy Ginger Molasses Cookies (p.34) and the Apricot Pistachio Crumble Bars (p.169).

Baking Beyond the Paywall: My review for Edd Kimber’s Small Batch Cookies is below for paid subscribers.

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