Grain and Fire

Grain and Fire
Author: Rebecca Sharpless
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2022-03-17
Genre: Cooking
ISBN: 1469668378

While a luscious layer cake may exemplify the towering glory of southern baking, like everything about the American South, baking is far more complicated than it seems. Rebecca Sharpless here weaves a brilliant chronicle, vast in perspective and entertaining in detail, revealing how three global food traditions—Indigenous American, European, and African—collided with and merged in the economies, cultures, and foodways of the South to create what we know as the southern baking tradition. Recognizing that sentiments around southern baking run deep, Sharpless takes delight in deflating stereotypes as she delves into the surprising realities underlying the creation and consumption of baked goods. People who controlled the food supply in the South used baking to reinforce their power and make social distinctions. Who used white cornmeal and who used yellow, who put sugar in their cornbread and who did not had traditional meanings for southerners, as did the proportions of flour, fat, and liquid in biscuits. By the twentieth century, however, the popularity of convenience foods and mixes exploded in the region, as it did nationwide. Still, while some regional distinctions have waned, baking in the South continues to be a remarkable, and remarkably tasty, source of identity and entrepreneurship.

The Cooking Gene

The Cooking Gene
Author: Michael W. Twitty
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 505
Release: 2018-07-31
Genre: Cooking
ISBN: 0062876570

2018 James Beard Foundation Book of the Year | 2018 James Beard Foundation Book Award Winner inWriting | Nominee for the 2018 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in Nonfiction | #75 on The Root100 2018 A renowned culinary historian offers a fresh perspective on our most divisive cultural issue, race, in this illuminating memoir of Southern cuisine and food culture that traces his ancestry—both black and white—through food, from Africa to America and slavery to freedom. Southern food is integral to the American culinary tradition, yet the question of who "owns" it is one of the most provocative touch points in our ongoing struggles over race. In this unique memoir, culinary historian Michael W. Twitty takes readers to the white-hot center of this fight, tracing the roots of his own family and the charged politics surrounding the origins of soul food, barbecue, and all Southern cuisine. From the tobacco and rice farms of colonial times to plantation kitchens and backbreaking cotton fields, Twitty tells his family story through the foods that enabled his ancestors’ survival across three centuries. He sifts through stories, recipes, genetic tests, and historical documents, and travels from Civil War battlefields in Virginia to synagogues in Alabama to Black-owned organic farms in Georgia. As he takes us through his ancestral culinary history, Twitty suggests that healing may come from embracing the discomfort of the Southern past. Along the way, he reveals a truth that is more than skin deep—the power that food has to bring the kin of the enslaved and their former slaveholders to the table, where they can discover the real America together. Illustrations by Stephen Crotts

Cheryl Day's Treasury of Southern Baking

Cheryl Day's Treasury of Southern Baking
Author: Cheryl Day
Publisher: Artisan
Total Pages: 826
Release: 2021-11-09
Genre: Cooking
ISBN: 1648291104

“The definitive book on Southern baking . . . a master class in making memorable baked goods.” —Bon Appétit IACP Cookbook Award Winner James Beard Award Finalist Georgia Author of the Year Award Winner Named a Best New Cookbook by Eater, Food & Wine, Southern Living, Epicurious, and more Named a Best Cookbook of the Year by Bon Appétit, Garden & Gun, and Taste of Home Named a Best Cookbook to Read and Gift by Thrillist Named a Top 10 Most Anticipated Cookbook of Fall 2021 by Stained Page News There is nothing more satisfying or comforting than tying on a favorite apron and baking something delicious. And nowhere has this been so woven into life than in the American South, where the attitude is that every day is worthy of a special treat from the kitchen. Cheryl Day, one of the South’s most respected bakers, a New York Times bestselling author, and co-owner—with her husband, Griff—of Savannah’s acclaimed Back in the Day Bakery, is a direct descendent of this storied Southern baking tradition. Literally: her great-great-grandmother was an enslaved pastry cook famous for her biscuits and cakes. Now Cheryl brings together her deep experience, the conversations she’s had with grandmothers and great-aunts and sister-bakers, and her passion for collecting local cookbooks and handwritten recipes in a definitive collection of over two hundred tried-and-true recipes that celebrate the craft of from-scratch Southern baking. Flaky, buttery biscuits. Light and crisp fritters. Muffins and scones with a Southern twist, using ingredients like cornmeal, pecans, sorghum, and cane syrup. Cookies that satisfy every craving. The big spectacular cakes, of course, layer upon layer bound by creamy frosting, the focal point of every celebration. And then the pies. Oh, the pies! The book steeps the baker in not only the recipes, ingredients, and special flavor profiles of Southern baking but also the very nuances of how to be a better baker. With Cheryl as your guide, it’s like having generations of Southern bakers standing over your shoulder, showing you just how to cream butter and sugar, fold whipped egg whites into batter, adjust for the temperature and humidity in your kitchen, and master those glorious piecrusts by overcoming the thing that experienced bakers know—a pie dough can sense fear! Time to get out that apron.

Southern Cakes

Southern Cakes
Author: Nancie McDermott
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Total Pages: 437
Release: 2012-02-03
Genre: Cooking
ISBN: 1452112827

A compilation of sixty-five of the greatest cake recipes from the South, plus plenty of baking tips, from the author of Southern Pies. It’s time to relax on the porch swing and feast your eyes on some of the tastiest cakes you’ll ever sink your fork into. There are recipes here for everything from Brown Sugar Pound Cake and fluffy white coconut cakes layered with lemon curd or raspberry jam to the chocolatey goodness of Mississippi Mud Cake and the extravagant elegance of Lady Baltimore Cake. With cakes this delectable, it’s no wonder Southerners are so proud of their baking history. Jam cakes and jelly rolls; humble pear bread and peanut cake; cakes with one, two, three, and four layers; and even Eudora Welty’s bourbon-soaked white fruitcake—each moist and delicious forkful represents the welcome-to-the-South attitude of the sultry Southern states. The Baking 101 section explains the basics, including buying the proper equipment, mixing the perfect batter, putting on the finishing touches (that means frosting, and lots of it!), and the how-to’s of storing your lovely cake so that the last slice tastes as delightful and moist as the first. As you page through Southern Cakes, you’ll surely come across some old favorites as well as many new delectable treats, plus a generous helping of Southern hospitality in each and every slice. “Food writer Nancie McDermott has compiled 65 of the most sinfully delicious cakes . . . and the result could make even Scarlet O’Hara weak in the knees.” —Chocolatier Magazine “For my money, the grandest-looking cakes in this book are the brown sugar pound cakes baked in a tube pan with a lush mass of caramel glaze drooling down its sides, and the classic coconut cake, with its feathery, dazzling white frosting. When I brought the coconut cake to the office, people in the street were literally lunging at it.” —Los Angeles Times

A Treasury of Southern Baking

A Treasury of Southern Baking
Author: Prudence Hilburn
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Total Pages: 308
Release: 1993
Genre: Cooking
ISBN:

Gives recipes for baking in the tradition of the American South.

American Cake

American Cake
Author: Anne Byrn
Publisher: Rodale
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2016-09-06
Genre: Cooking
ISBN: 1623365430

Cakes have become an icon of American cultureand a window to understanding ourselves. Be they vanilla, lemon, ginger, chocolate, cinnamon, boozy, Bundt, layered, marbled, even checkerboard--they are etched in our psyche. Cakes relate to our lives, heritage, and hometowns. And as we look at the evolution of cakes in America, we see the evolution of our history: cakes changed with waves of immigrants landing on ourshores, with the availability (and scarcity) of ingredients, with cultural trends and with political developments. In her new book American Cake, Anne Byrn (creator of the New York Times bestselling series The Cake Mix Doctor) will explore this delicious evolution and teach us cake-making techniques from across the centuries, all modernized for today’s home cooks. Anne wonders (and answers for us) why devil’s food cake is not red in color, how the Southern delicacy known as Japanese Fruit Cake could be so-named when there appears to be nothing Japanese about the recipe, and how Depression-era cooks managed to bake cakes without eggs, milk, and butter. Who invented the flourless chocolate cake, the St. Louis gooey butter cake, the Tunnel of Fudge cake? Were these now-legendary recipes mishaps thanks to a lapse of memory, frugality, or being too lazy to run to the store for more flour? Join Anne for this delicious coast-to-coast journey and savor our nation's history of cake baking. From the dark, moist gingerbread and blueberry cakes of New England and the elegant English-style pound cake of Virginia to the hard-scrabble apple stack cake home to Appalachia and the slow-drawl, Deep South Lady Baltimore Cake, you will learn the stories behind your favorite cakes and how to bake them.

The Cake Mix Doctor

The Cake Mix Doctor
Author: Anne Byrn
Publisher: Rodale
Total Pages: 528
Release: 2003-01-01
Genre: Cooking
ISBN: 9781579546922

The cake mix doctor...doctors cake mixes to create more than 200 luscious desserts with from-scratch taste.

The Cake Mix Doctor Returns!

The Cake Mix Doctor Returns!
Author: Anne Byrn
Publisher: Workman Publishing Company
Total Pages: 513
Release: 2009-09-24
Genre: Cooking
ISBN: 0761159487

What could be better than a phenomenon? The return of a phenomenon. Ten years ago Anne Byrn's The Cake Mix Doctor began its extraordinary run as one of the most popular baking books of all time. Now Anne Byrn is back with the all-new Cake Mix Doctor Returns! From the beloved author who showed home bakers how adding a touch of sweet butter or a dusting of cocoa powder, a dollop of vanilla yogurt or flurry of grated lemon zest could transform the ordinary into the extraordinary. Here are 160 brand-new recipes—that’s right, 160 amazing cake mix recipes—for luscious layer cakes, sheet cakes, brownies, bars, cookies, and more. And the book is needed more than ever. Today 90 percent of home cooks use prepackaged mixes, while the economy is creating a perfect excuse to let them eat cake—cake equals happiness. And what cakes! 40 layer cakes, from Tiramisu Cake to The Best Red Velvet Cake, Strawberry Refrigerator Cake to Chocolate Swirled Cannoli Cake. 35 sheet cakes. 38 bundt and pound cakes. 16 cupcakes and muffins, plus the cult classic Whoopie Pie. And brownies, bars, and cookies, including Spice Drop Cookies, Angel Food Macaroons, and Chocolate Espresso Biscotti. There's even a wedding cake, a frequent request from the author's passionate online community. The Cake Mix Doctor is back—just say ahhhhh!

Southern Ground

Southern Ground
Author: Jennifer Lapidus
Publisher: Ten Speed Press
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2021-04-27
Genre: Cooking
ISBN: 1984857487

A groundbreaking tour of Southern craft bakeries featuring more than 75 rich, grain-forward recipes, from one of the leaders of the cold stone-milled flour movement in the South. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR BY GARDEN & GUN • “I felt like I was there, on the journey with Jennifer Lapidus herself, as I read her beautifully written book.”—Peter Reinhart, author of The Bread Baker’s Apprentice At Carolina Ground flour mill in Asheville, North Carolina, Jennifer Lapidus is transforming bakery offerings across the southern United States with intensely flavorful flour, made from grains grown and cold stone–milled in the heart of the South. While delivering extraordinary taste, texture, and story, cold stone-milled flour also allows bakers to move away from industrial commodity flours to create sustainable and artisanal products. In Southern Ground, Lapidus celebrates the incredible work of craft bakers from all over the South. With detailed profiles on top Southern bakers and more than seventy-five highly curated recipes arranged by grain, Southern Ground harnesses the wisdom and knowledge that the baking community has gained. Lapidus showcases superior cold stone-milled flour and highlights the importance of baking with locally farmed ingredients, while providing instruction and insight into how to use and enjoy these geographically distinct flavor-forward flours. Southern Ground is a love letter to Southern baking and a call for the home baker to understand the source and makeup of the most important of ingredients: flour.