Cookbook Review: The Global Bakery: Cakes from the Worlds Kitchens by Anna Weston

Disclosure / Disclaimer: I received this ebook, free of charge, from Edelweiss, for review purposes on this blog. No other compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to post about it


Rounding out our French International Day, here's a cookbook that takes us around the world (including France), to check out CAKES!

Synopsis: 

The first book to take the cake baker on a true world tour, with sixty of the most popular recipes.

The diversity of the world's cakes are represented for the first time in one thoroughly researched volume. The amateur baker is taken on a journey across the continents visiting Cote d'Ivoire, Libya, Finland, Hungary, Azerbaijan, India, Cambodia, Papua New Guinea, United States, Colombia, and many more countries along the way.

Working on the premise that every culture must have a favorite cake, author-baker Anna Weston started researching the wonders of baking in corners of the globe that she's not likely to visit in the flesh. She soon discovered an amazing richness of cakes and found herself investigating cakes and delicacies that are well beyond the scope of most other books about baking-let alone her mother's fund of knowledge.

With all tastes and occasions catered for, the recipes have been fully tested in a domestic kitchen and feature sumptuous photographs. The book includes a number of vegan and wheat- and gluten-free recipes. These are marked in the contents list and in the recipes.

Review

This is a great book to introduce you to every type of international cake! It's neat to see the different influences on the cake styles- locally abundant ingredients, and those sourced in from colonizers tastes, in some cases. The book would be great for homeschooler parents- you could add a cooking/math quotient into your geography lessons, that would be totally unique and allow for you to enjoy the results! Most of the recipes are very simple to make, and while some ingredients are not normal for the typical American pantry, they aren't too hard to find anymore thanks to our global online access! I love that ALL the recipes have a full size colored picture for you- this is SO important for recipes that you might not be familiar with, to make sure they look like they are supposed to! If you have a foodie or a baker in the family, they'll love to get this book for Christmas, or any special occasion!

Recipe: 

Keeping with our French theme for the day, I thought I'd share one of the great French cakes from the book (Gateau Moelleaux a l'Ananas et a la Noix de Coco) that is very close to coconut/pineapple cake that my grandmother used to make. Hers was based on her Canadian French mother's recipe, but it is easy to see the French influence!!

About the Author:

Anna Weston is the office manager at New Internationalist. She has been an avid cake baker for many years, taking great pleasure in adapting recipes to create new flavors and then trying out the results on her family and colleagues. She is passionate about getting the message across that baking is not just for the experts and that, all over the world, delicious cakes have always been produced in domestic kitchens with rudimentary equipment and ingredients.