REVIEW AND GIVEAWAY – Grandbaby Cakes Cookbook

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Grandbaby Cakes: Modern Recipes, Vintage Charm, Soulful Memories

• Author: Jocelyn Delk Adams
• Publisher: Agate Surrey (September 1, 2015)
• ISBN-10: 1572841737
• ISBN-13: 978-1572841734
• Cover price $22.95

Since founding her popular recipe blog Grandbaby Cakes in 2012, Adams has been putting fresh twists on old favorites. Adams has earned praise from critics and the adoration of bakers both young and old for her easygoing advice, rich photography, and the heartwarming memories she shares of her family’s generations-old love of baking.

As a child, Adams and her family would routinely embark on the ten-hour journey from their home in Chicago to Winona, Mississippi. There, she would watch her grandmother, affectionately nicknamed Big Mama, bake and develop delicious, melt-in-your-mouth desserts. From blooming tree-picked fruit to farm-raised eggs and fresh-churned butter, Big Mama used what was readily available to invent completely original treats. Adams treasured the moments when her mother, aunt, and Big Mama would bring her into the kitchen to let her dabble in the process as a rite of passage. Big Mama’s recipes became the fabric of their family heritage. Grandbaby Cakes is Adams’s love note to her family, thanking those who came before and passing on this touching tradition with 50 brilliant cakes.

Jocelyn Delk Adams is the founder of Grandbaby Cakes, a food blog inspired by her grandmother and devoted to classic desserts, modern trends, and showcasing the pastry field in an accessible way. Grandbaby Cakes has been featured by Better Homes and Gardens, Ebony, The New York Times, People, Food52, The Kitchn, the Chicago Sun-Times, and more. She is also the founder of “A Charitable Confection,” an annual anti-violence dessert fundraiser featuring the top bakeries in Chicago. She hopes Grandbaby Cakes will inspire a new generation of dessert enthusiasts to learn to bake and not feel guilty about enjoying dessert.

There are a few recipes in my family, such as my Grandma’s potato balls, that weren’t written down anywhere. I miss Grandma, and her potato balls. So, I love the idea of a cookbook containing recipes paying tribute to older generations in a family.

Chapters in this book include:

• Pound Cakes
• Layer Cakes
• Sheet Cakes
• Baby Cakes
• Celebration Cakes
• Seasons and Holidays

In the beginning of the book the reader finds a section entitled “How To Use This Book”. This section is full of helpful information for both the baking novice and the experienced baker. The author shares information and tips on ingredients, baking, baking tools and more. Then come the recipes. The recipes in this book aren’t your regular same old same old cakes. All of these are a bit different due to the variety of flavor combinations. The level of difficulty for each recipe is marked by the number of scoops – 1 scoop is fairly simple and 3 scoops is more complex. Stories of the recipes and the author’s family members are woven right into each and every recipe throughout the book. All of the ingredients were items you might have in your kitchen or could find in your local grocery store. Cooking time is hidden in the recipe, which means you have to read through to find it. I do find it much easier to use a cookbook and decide what recipe I might be able to try if I can see the time it takes to make listed clearly somewhere, and not buried where you have to read for it. The book contains tons of color pictures, both of the recipes themselves as well as the author and her family through the years. This cookbook would be appropriate for anyone that enjoys or is interested in baking.

Here’s the trailer for the cookbook.

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