More Than Cake: 100 Baking Recipes Built for Pleasure and Community
Natasha Pickowicz
(Author)
21,000+ Reviews
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Description
The sumptuous debut cookbook from celebrated baker, activist, and pastry "it girl" Natasha Pickowicz * Named a Best New Cookbook of Spring 2023 by Food & Wine, Eater, and more * A James Beard Award Nominee Natasha Pickowicz is a creative force in the world of baking. Her pastries are uniquely delicious and surprising. She's picked up three James Beard Award nominations for her time as a professional pastry chef. Her buzzy bake sales for Planned Parenthood and other nonprofits have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now she shares her recipes and baking know-how in a debut cookbook brimming with the energy, passion, joy, knowledge, and spirit of generosity that define her work. The recipes are fresh and uncomplicated, drawing on the author's Chinese and Californian heritage. She pairs nectarine and miso in a tarte tatin and makes a layer cake with olive oil, mascarpone, and fennel. Black cardamom gets tucked into pecan sticky buns, and galettes go savory with kabocha squash. Brown butter is the secret to irresistible buckwheat chocolate chunk cookies. And she's a born teacher. Of course pastry requires a real focus on detail and technique, but the author is here at every step with invaluable tips: underbeat meringue; boil your plum stones to extract even more plum flavor; look for "first-press" yuzu juice; for the flakiest pie dough, first freeze your butter, then use a grater to get perfect shreds. More Than Cake means baking to bring people together. It calls on you to prioritize pleasure. As the author writes, "Dessert is beyond simple calories and nutrition. . . . It spreads delight in a way that no other kind of dish can. This is something I think people really need--it's not optional." It's a philosophy to live by. Product Details
Price
$40.00
$37.20
Publisher
Artisan Publishers
Publish Date
April 11, 2023
Pages
320
Dimensions
8.39 X 10.25 X 1.11 inches | 2.85 pounds
Language
English
Type
Hardcover
EAN/UPC
9781648290541
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About the Author
Natasha Pickowicz is a New York City-based chef and writer. She is a three-time James Beard Foundation Award finalist. Much of her pastry work explores the relationship between baking and social justice, including ongoing collaborations with seminal New York City institutions like Lenox Hill Neighborhood House, God's Love We Deliver, the Brigid Alliance, and Planned Parenthood of Greater New York, for whom she produced a massive city-wide bake sale, raising more than $150,000 between 2017 and 2019. Currently, Pickowicz runs the pastry pop-up called Never Ending Taste, which has been held at NYC's Superiority Burger, Brooklyn's the Four Horsemen, the American-Vietnamese bakery Ba. n B., the Taiwanese tearoom T. Company, Los Angeles's Kismet, and the legendary Chino Farm in Rancho Santa Fe, California. Pickowicz's recipes and writing have been published in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Bon App.tit, Saveur, Food & Wine, New York magazine, Cherry Bombe, and many other publications. Follow her on Instagram at @natashapickowicz.
Reviews
"It's hard to pick just one thing to love about pastry maven and activist Natasha Pickowicz's long-awaited debut cookbook, so I won't even try. . . . This is the baking book of the year."
--Food & Wine "Celebrated for her fine-dining pastry work and fundraiser bake sales, Natasha Pickowicz brings a community spirit to this soulfully precise book."
--Vanity Fair "From simple yet surprising recipes to total showstoppers, [Pickowicz]'ll change the way you think about baking with her unexpected flavors and combinations, like pecan sticky buns with cardamom and nectarine and miso tarte tatin. Especially fun: the build-your-own layer cake section with various sponges, soaks, fillings, and buttercreams."
--Simply Recipes "Pickowicz's melodic prose makes you want to curl up with her book, a cup of tea, and one of her pecan and black cardamom buns and revel in the originality of such outside-the-box recipes."
--Booklist "Natasha takes the natural yet whimsical aesthetic, unique sweet-and-savory flavor combinations, and technical mastery that have made her a pastry chef 's pastry chef and translates them into approachable, achievable recipes for the home baker."
--Claire Saffitz, author of What's for Dessert "It's almost impossible to capture the reciprocal joy that comes from making and sharing beautiful baked goods with friends--oh wait, Natasha Pickowicz has done it perfectly, right here."
--Carla Lalli Music, author of That Sounds So Good and Where Cooking Begins "One of the most inspiring baking books and a stunning piece of work that every home baker needs on their bookshelf."
--Kristina Cho, author of Mooncakes and Milk Bread "Natasha's dedication to bringing people together through food to benefit community is widely known and admired, and this book showcases her love for the art and craft of simple, beautiful pastry, with a particular talent for combining the traditional with surprise elements to create something wholly new."
--Liz Prueitt, chef/owner, Tartine Bakery "Natasha's respect for ingredients (the fruit section reads as a love letter), genius ingredient pairings (see Olive Oil Cake with Crispy Capers), and ability to balance aspirational with accessible make this book a must-have and prove that--not to be redundant--it is so much more than cake."
--Antoni Porowski, author of Antoni: Let's Do Dinner "In the Natasha Pickowicz weltanschauung, mottled radicchio is a layer cake garnish, the bake sale is a middle finger of defiance, you make your own condensed milk (say what?), Parker House rolls are fig leafed, and Mom does all the illustrations."
--Brooks Headley, chef/operator, Superiority Burger "In More Than Cake, Natasha has collected delicious recipes that perfectly reflect her originality and sense of whimsy. Inspired!"
--Claudia Fleming, author of Delectable "Think of More Than Cake as your guide to capturing the happiness of baking, the pleasure of making something fabulously delicious with your hands and your heart, and the satisfaction of sharing what you've made with others."
--Dorie Greenspan, author of Baking with Dorie
--Food & Wine "Celebrated for her fine-dining pastry work and fundraiser bake sales, Natasha Pickowicz brings a community spirit to this soulfully precise book."
--Vanity Fair "From simple yet surprising recipes to total showstoppers, [Pickowicz]'ll change the way you think about baking with her unexpected flavors and combinations, like pecan sticky buns with cardamom and nectarine and miso tarte tatin. Especially fun: the build-your-own layer cake section with various sponges, soaks, fillings, and buttercreams."
--Simply Recipes "Pickowicz's melodic prose makes you want to curl up with her book, a cup of tea, and one of her pecan and black cardamom buns and revel in the originality of such outside-the-box recipes."
--Booklist "Natasha takes the natural yet whimsical aesthetic, unique sweet-and-savory flavor combinations, and technical mastery that have made her a pastry chef 's pastry chef and translates them into approachable, achievable recipes for the home baker."
--Claire Saffitz, author of What's for Dessert "It's almost impossible to capture the reciprocal joy that comes from making and sharing beautiful baked goods with friends--oh wait, Natasha Pickowicz has done it perfectly, right here."
--Carla Lalli Music, author of That Sounds So Good and Where Cooking Begins "One of the most inspiring baking books and a stunning piece of work that every home baker needs on their bookshelf."
--Kristina Cho, author of Mooncakes and Milk Bread "Natasha's dedication to bringing people together through food to benefit community is widely known and admired, and this book showcases her love for the art and craft of simple, beautiful pastry, with a particular talent for combining the traditional with surprise elements to create something wholly new."
--Liz Prueitt, chef/owner, Tartine Bakery "Natasha's respect for ingredients (the fruit section reads as a love letter), genius ingredient pairings (see Olive Oil Cake with Crispy Capers), and ability to balance aspirational with accessible make this book a must-have and prove that--not to be redundant--it is so much more than cake."
--Antoni Porowski, author of Antoni: Let's Do Dinner "In the Natasha Pickowicz weltanschauung, mottled radicchio is a layer cake garnish, the bake sale is a middle finger of defiance, you make your own condensed milk (say what?), Parker House rolls are fig leafed, and Mom does all the illustrations."
--Brooks Headley, chef/operator, Superiority Burger "In More Than Cake, Natasha has collected delicious recipes that perfectly reflect her originality and sense of whimsy. Inspired!"
--Claudia Fleming, author of Delectable "Think of More Than Cake as your guide to capturing the happiness of baking, the pleasure of making something fabulously delicious with your hands and your heart, and the satisfaction of sharing what you've made with others."
--Dorie Greenspan, author of Baking with Dorie
