A Good Day to Bake: Simple Baking Recipes for Every Mood

I have been baking for over 50 years both for pleasure and professionally. I also own a vast number of books on the subject. I first started baking Benjamina's recipes from her columns in the Gaurdian Feast supplement and subsequently bought and baked from her first, slim tome 'The New Way to Cake'. Her recipes have never failed which is more than I can say for many, more widely known, authors.Today I have received my copy of A Good Day to Bake and, having read through it from cover to cover, I can honestly say this is a woman at the top of her game. Her writing is warm and unfussy, her flavour combinations creative without being too 'out there' and her methods well thought through and clearly explained. I haven't baked from it yet but know, from past experience of her recipes, that the many enticing bakes chronicled within the pages of this book will be reliable as well as delicious.

My favourite baking book so far. Every cake I've baked from this book has been delicious, successful, and not too complicated. It's beautifully shot and has become a staple in our house already. Can't recommend it enough.

I love how this cookbook is imaginative, adding interesting ingredients you wouldn't traditionally find in a cake recipe, and yet it works beautifully.

As we speak, the rosemary, nectarine, ricotta focaccia is baking, my first recipe from the book, and things don’t look good. The author calls the dough sticky, but it is soaking wet. One wonders if the change to US measurements may be off. No hope of the so-called “magical” experience of pressing little dents into the dough surface. It is too wet. I fear this is a disappointing waste of ingredients. If you make it, use your own focaccia recipe and add the toppings to that.