Home Baking by Jeffrey Alford, Naomi Duguid

This is a wonderful cookbook but it is not only a cookbook.The photographs, personal accounts, and history of the foods makes it much more than a cookbook.It is like a foodie tour around the world.The pictures are breathtaking and the nonfood information is fantastic.It is over four hundred large pages of perfection.

Each chapter puts the type of baking into a different category and within these subcategories.The main themes are Pastry, Bread, Smaller Breads, and Cakes and Cookies.There is such a variety in this book that it is impossible to pick a favorite.There is the pfeffernusse cookie from Germany, independent brownies (wow), Ukrainian Christmas Bread, and Czech potato pancakes just to name a few.

This book is simply magnificent and you must see it to believe it.