Do you use Best Recipe from CI?

I have been using this book for a while and really like it...now I love it...I am no baker, but I had to make some cupcakes for a photograph...I picked their traditional white birthday cake and followed directions.---I am pretty impressed...no, REALLY impressed with the very regular crumb, its softness (they have you use cake flour)...

They are making me look good (it was perhaps not the best for cupcakes as they didn't really "crown"--much depends on what you want, but for a layer cake they were flat and even...)

Good stuff just keeps coming out of that book. I think that book could teach anyone to cook

Barb

[Jenise]

Barb, I subscribe to the magazine, though I admit to letting them stack up three or four at a time before I get around to reading them, and this summer I've had no spare time to read, but I'm unaware of there being a book in which they've compiled all their top recipes. Tell me more about this....

There are several books from CI, with essays on the gazillion things they did before they settled on the recipe they present. I own Best REcipe and Best Soups and Stews, and true to form, you cannot make a misstep with these books. I still talk about the creme caramel my then 15 y.o. son made from CI--the best cooked custard I'd had in a long time--I am hugely critical of those dishes, and never quite happy, but he--and CI--came through...

I just happen to be extra pleased with myself for baking something so gorgeous and tasty...since I am such a mediocre baker, that is...

Go to Amazon and search Best REcipe--this book comes up with the others in the series...It is a bigger series than I realized...

b

One warning -- if you buy one of these books from CI, they assume you want to buy all the new issues and they'll ship without checking first.

I returned three that I wasn't interested in, until they finally stopped. Amazon or Barnes and Noble are a safer and cheaper way to go.

I checked out The New Recipe Book from Cook's Illustrated that has 1,000 recipes. Interesting reading, plus the recipes I've tried so far were good, particularly the coq au vin.

I also find their recipes (and articles) fantastic. I subscribed to the magazine a while back, and just added a .com subscription for 12.50 for the first year. It's easier to find a recipe or review with a search engine than by flipping pages. And the printed on paper recipe is easier to de4al with in the kitchen than a book or magazine.

I subscribe to the online version as well, Ray, for just those reasons. Although, from time to time I borrow a magazine -- somehow it seems more "friendly".