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Learn to COOK - Heirloom Baking with the Brass Sisters: More than 100 Years of Recipes Discovered from Family Cookbooks, Original Journals, Scraps of Paper, and Grandmothers Kitchen
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List Price: $29.95
Our Price: $19.77
Your Save: $ 10.18 ( 34% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers
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Average Customer Rating: 
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.815
EAN: 9781579125882
ISBN: 1579125883
Label: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers
Manufacturer: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 312
Publication Date: 2006-10-06
Publisher: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers
Studio: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers
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Editorial Reviews:
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FINALIST FOR A JAMES BEARD AWARD IN THE BAKING/DESSERT CATEGORY
We all have fond memories of a favorite dessert our grandmother or mother used to bake. It’s these dishes that give us comfort in times of stress, help us celebrate special occasions, and remind us of the person who used to bake for us those many years ago.
In Heirloom Baking, Marilynn Brass and Sheila Brass preserve and update 150 of these beloved desserts. The recipes are taken from their vast collection of antique manuscript cookbooks, handwritten recipes passed down through the generations that they’ve amassed over twenty years. The recipes range from the late 1800s to today, and come from a variety of ethnicities and regions. The book features such down-home and delicious recipes as Brandied Raisin Teacakes, Cuban Flan, Cranberry-Orange Cream Scones, Chattanooga Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars, and many more. Accompanying the recipes are stories from the lives of the families from which they came.
The Brass Sisters have taken care to update every recipe for today’s modern kitchens. More than 150 photographs showcase the scrumptious food in full-color detail. Finally, the Brass sisters encourage each reader to begin collecting his or her own family recipes in the lined pages and envelope at the back of the book.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Marilynn and Sheila are to Die for
Comment: My mother gave me Heirloom Baking with the Brass Sisters for Christmas last year and I just loved it, loved the lay out, love the recipes (a note here, I'm a five day a week dieter and healthy eater, but on Saturday and Sunday I throw caution out the window and eat what I want and I've gone to the Brass sisters several weekends in a row during the last year).
Because I loved their last cookbook so much, I was really looking forward to this one and I have to say I was not disappointed, but then I knew I was just going to love it and I surely do. As with their last book, everything in this one is perfect and perfectly presented, from the well laid out recipes to the photos of the delicious food. You can't go wrong with the Brass Sisters, you really can't.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Baker's Delight!
Comment: Regretfully, I do not own a copy of this book because it's the library copy but as soon as I can, I will be buying a copy of this cookbook. Till then, I will be making copies of numerous recipes out of this book.
My paternal great-grandma and my maternal grandma were both great cooks. I am very fortunate to have a copies of my great-grandma's recipes formatted in a lovely binder. I wish I could say the same of my grandma's. There is a recipe in this cookbook, on page 115 that may be the recipe that my mom has been looking for, called Canadian Sugar Pie. We lost my grandma's pie recipe which was handed down to her by her mother-in-law. It leads me to wonder just how many bakers have lost treasured recipes throughout the years ...
This book is just wonderful. It is full of tidbits, photos and recipes. There are photos of antique cake pans that my husband would love to have in our kitchen and the tidbits are wonderful. It is a glimpse into the not-so-distant past where women did not have all the ingredients readily available like we do today. It is a nostagalic look into the past. It doesn't look as hard to make as it sounds and I can only imagine the smells coming out of those two sisters' kitchens as they tested every recipe in there.
This is a collector's item as well as a practical baker's item. In short, it really is a must-have in kitchens because who knows? Someday you might be looking for a lost recipe only to find it in this book.
8/23/08
Customer Rating:
Summary: watch out for the pan sizes
Comment: I am giving this book five stars because every recipe I have tried has been, if not outrageously good, then at least delicious. Plus, the text is interesting and the pictures of antique kitchenware are great, making this my favorite cookbook to bake from right now. I am starting to notice a trend though, after making the chocolate peanut butter cake. It did not fit in the pan size that was recommended and ran out all over my oven. I then recalled when I made the lemon cheesecake it didn't fit in my smallish 9" springform pan either. I'll be paying more attention now; the recipes are worth this inconvenience.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Just like what your (grand)mothers used to bake
Comment: Heirloom Baking with the Brass Sisters: More than 100 Years of Recipes Discovered from Family Cookbooks, Original Journals, Scraps of Paper & Grandmother's Kitchen lovingly collects those intriguing bits of family history in the form of recipes scribbled on the backs of bridge tallies, grocery sacks, and yellowed bits of paper. Collected from used bookstores, flea markets, yard sales, and from friends, the dozens of vintage recipes ranging from the 1800s to the 1960s and today are snapshots in time, from the frugality of war rationing (Miss Emma Smith's War Cake) to bridge snacks (Graham Cracker Fudge, Mah Jong Candy) to Jewish comfort foods such as mandelbrot, hamantaschen, and challah.
Sheila and Marilynn Brass have tested, tweaked, and updated these long-lost gems to the modern kitchen, an all-important step to ensuring success. Why is this important? In the good old days, measurements could be imprecise, the texture and type of flour depended on the mill it was ground at, and sugar came in the form of hard cones of loaf sugar that had to be broken and pulverized. Often, oven temperatures were omitted. In addition, they have chosen to use commonly available ingredients (and they include a handy primer on essential ingredients and tips on what was used in the test recipe), making these heirloom baked goods accessible to everyone.
The recipes are grouped loosely by occasion, from breakfast (Pineapple Walnut Breakfast Bars, Helen's Coffee Bans, Cranberry-Orange Cream Scones) to immigrant recipes (Hazelnut Cake, Libby's Coconut Linzer Bars, Canadian Sugar Pie, Mrs. Mattie James' Jamaica Caramel Ice Cream), church recipes (Christian Service Cookies, Reverend Brown's Cake, Black Pepper Hush Puppies), bridge snacks, holiday recipes , and a chapter on chocolate (French Chocolate Cake with Mocha Frosting, Mocha Ricotta Cake with Ganache Topping, Chocolate Coconut Bread Pudding).
The authors make heirloom baking accessible to the modern cook, and add insightful notes on the original bakers along with kitchen tips on substitutions and variations. This is a wonderful gift for anyone who's longing to recreate the smells and tastes of grandmother's kitchen and a joyous ode to simpler times.
One small caveat: according to their website, there is a misprint in the recipe for Mrs. Marasi's Butterballs, on page 252. Change the amount to 1 cup of butter, not 2 cups of butter.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Heirloom Baking is a treasure!
Comment: I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book which was written in an easy to understand conversational tone. I love the history of the recipes and the clear instructions. I also liked that the authors tested store-brand ingredients against brand-name ingredients in order to be able to advise readers that we do not need to pay more to produce quality baked goods.
I liked that the recipes are for baked goods that I want to eat but do not duplicate recipes I have seen in other cookbooks (since I have more than 250 cookbooks, this is worth noting).
The book is published on sturdy pages and contains many photos of the finished products as well as of hand-written recipes and cooking tools of years gone by. My only complaint is a very minor one - I found the first page of each chapter a little hard to read as the text was superimposed over a decorative pattern.
I am grateful to the Brass sisters for "rescuing" these recipes from flea markets and antique stores in order to share them with the next generation of bakers. I encourage them to continue their search for lost recipes and to publish those, too.
This book would be an excellent gift, if you can bear to part with it!
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