The New Way to Cake: Simple Recipes with Exceptional Flavor

Adorei o livro e recomendo para quem curte inovar nos sabores. Até o momento fiz apenas uma receita e foi sucesso por aqui. Já conhecia o trabalho de Benjamina e sempre gostei dos resultados. Minimalista no visual, mas suas receitas são cheias de sabores marcantes! Se você gosta de apostar no diferente, compre!

Absolutely adore this book!! I love the fact that there are so many unique recipes that I haven’t seen before and it really goes beyond the standard cakes that we’re all used too. Very flavour forward which I appreciate. The styling is fresh and minimal, there’s not a lot of clutter that distracts from the stunning images. I made the apple, sage and caramel cake which was simple to follow and tasted fantastic. This book is perfect if you’re genuinely looking for something new and exciting!

Neue Rezepte, ungewöhnliche Gewürze, leicht nachzubacken

Published late in 2019, The New Way to Cake arrived in my kitchen during the pandemic. In talking to another mate, I received a ringer of a recommendation for a cake cookbook. This friend -- not a baker -- raved about Ebuehi's book and since I found I was using my time at home during the lockdown to bake, I didn't think it could hurt if I invested in this cookbook. And, over the past year I've come to realize that this cookbook is exactly as it's advertised on the cover: "Simple recipes with exceptional flavor." Ebuehi, a quarter finalist in the 2016 cycle of The Great British Bake Off, grew as a baker during her run on the show and with her book, The New Way to Cake, she developed recipes by looking at combinations of flavours, ingredients, and textures. As I bake from The New Way to Cake, I see that the recipes are simple to bake but are in no way simplistic. Most of what I've baked has been as an afternoon treat for when my daughter arrives home from school. While being exceptionally flavourful, these bakes feel steadfast and comforting. Each bite is scrumptious, and one is never left feeling like something is missing. Thinking about tasteless cakes, I am reminded of my friend's favourite saying -- "Is the juice worth the squeeze?" And, in many cases, cakes aren't worth "the squeeze" (the effort to make). Beautiful, but tasteless, the effort of baking a cake is overshadowed by lackluster results. What I've come to realize with the almost half-dozen cakes I've baked from Ebuehi's book, her cake recipes are totally worth the squeeze. No need for a kitchen full of baking equipment, I found that each recipe could be mixed up in a single bowl using an electric hand mixer. Along with the recipes, the minimally styled photographs throughout the book show each cake in their own state of natural beauty. The 60 cake recipes are organized into 6 chapters: Nuts & Caramel, Spices, Chocolate, Citrus, Floral, and Fruit. And, when I first read through the book, I couldn't decide what to bake first because it all sounded so delicious! There are also cakes for every mood and occasion: after school, breakfast, birthdays -- even a wedding cake -- Ebuehi has created beautiful cake recipes for all the moments from quiet occasions to the notable ones. The Nutmeg Custard Cake Doughnuts was the first recipe I tried. Saturday mornings are my favourite time to bake up something delicious and it was a late-winter Saturday morning in March that I pulled out my doughnut pan. What is better than enjoying a weekend morning with a coffee and a doughnut? Custard powder and nutmeg in the batter, followed by a gorgeous glaze made with custard powder, these doughnuts -- unsurprisingly -- were extremely delicious! The cake doughnuts had a soft crumb and I appreciated that these were baked, rather than fried. For my daughter I added some colourful sprinkles too. They were so good that I boxed up some and dropped them off on my neighbour's doorstep -- a great bake should be shared! From there I chose a few of the loaf cakes to bake as afterschool treats for my daughter. The Cinnamon Loaf w/ Espresso Butter is incredible! Ebuehi's recipe doesn't just rely on adding the cinnamon powder to the batter but, instead, cinnamon sticks and vanilla extract are put into warmed milk and left to steep for a quarter-hour. This simple technique of steeping ingredients in milk increases the end flavour of the cake 10-fold and, a slice of this flavourful cake is complimented with a generous slather of a lightly honeyed espresso butter. The Date & Rooibos Loaf is equally as delicious. I love the idea of using tea (or tisanes) in baking and the date/rooibos pairing is particularly tasty here. Both ingredients have an earthy sweetness, and we took Ebuehi's advice of lightly toasting slices then serving with a generous swipe of salted butter. The last loaf recipe I tried was one that I enjoyed as a child -- the lemon-poppy seed cake. But here, Ebuehi has taken a familiar cake and developed the flavour even further. She combines orange, grapefruit, and lemon, along with sour cream to create a wonderfully bright zing. The sweet-tart flavour of this tender-crumbed cake is another loaf that was great to have on the counter, ready for my daughter to get home from school. When I came across Ebuehi's recipe for Hawaij Coffee Cake, I wanted to give a store-bought version that I picked up a try. While Ebuehi gives instructions on how to make your own Hawaij spice mix, I opted to use the version I had in my pantry. Not to be confused with the American version a coffee cake, the batter for this coffee-flavoured sponge cake included a good tablespoon of the Hawaij which creates such a lovely warm flavour when paired with the espresso powder. This light cake is then topped with a luscious mix of mascarpone, espresso powder, coffee-flavoured liqueur, and heavy cream. I took the extra step of adding cacao nibs, as Ebuehi suggests, along with a light sprinkling of Kafe Hawaij powder over the topping. The cake is rich and spicy, and the topping is tangy, cool, and creamy. As Ebuehi says in the introduction to The New Way to Cake, "You can't go wrong with cake" and I would further this sentiment by telling you that you certainly couldn't go wrong if you had this book in your cookbook library. Over the past year since I bought this wonderful cookbook on the recommendation of my friend, I've found many delicious cake recipes to bake and, it's a book I continue to reach for when I just want to have a little cake to enjoy with an afternoon tea or coffee (or glass of milk in my daughter's case).

This is my new favourite recipe book. The cake recipes are interesting and innovative, with unusual combinations of flavours (eg the cardamom tres leches and the pomegranate labneh cake were absolute winners. I admit I have not yet been game enough to try the caramelised plantain upside down cake). I've made about 6 of the cakes so far, and each of them was astonishingly tasty. The book is not suitable for absolute beginner bakers, but is appropriate for those with at least some experience and ranges from medium complexity up to more challenging recipes for special occasions. The instructions are easy to follow, and I love that she includes both weight and volume measurements for the ingredients. The only downside is that many of the cakes require at least one ingredient which needs to be sourced from a specialty grocer/foodstore. Warning: This book is not suitable if members of your household are on a diet.