I am a HUGE fan of Mary Roach’s books. Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers may be my favorite, and in the summer of 2010, Ray and I went to see her book tour talk for Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void at the Free Library of Philadelphia.

Now it’s 2013, and Mary Roach has a new book out, Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal. She came to the Free Library on Thursday to talk about her new book and be interviewed by the hilarious and super smart Anna Dhody, curator at the Mutter Museum.

I tweeted at her to see if cookies would be acceptable to bring, and the response was great:

For those who might not know, “villi” are small projections that protrude from the lining of the intestinal wall. Fun, right?

So, in honor of Gulp, I made 4 round cookies decorated with royal icing stomachs (freehand!) and then using a weird little worm cookie cutter, I made 3 intestine cookies with a cutaway revealing the villi (sprinkles, or as some say in this part of Philly/South Jersey, “jimmies”).

The talk was great (Mary and Anna are a great match), and I gave Mary the cookies when she signed my copy of Gulp. She LOVED them! Even asked if I was a professional baker, which really made me feel awesome.

Confession: I’ve been one of those people who thinks vanilla is boring. Vanilla ice cream? Maybe with pie. Vanilla cake? Well, maybe, depending on the frosting. However, Pure Vanilla: Irresistible Recipes and Essential Techniques by Shauna Sever has proven me very, very wrong.

Vanilla is anything BUT boring. Sever lays down some really fascinating details about the vanilla bean even before she digs into the recipes. Here are a few I found to be interesting:

• Vanilla beans are the second most expensive spice, following the No. 1 saffron.
• The beans have to be harvested by hand (hence the hefty price tag)
• Vanilla beans are the seed pods of a specific type of orchid that prefers hot, humid climates, approximately 700-1,400 miles from the equator.
• Thomas Jefferson had a sweet tooth and was an avid ice cream maker–who would have known? When he was the ambassador to France in 1789, he fell in love with vanilla and brought some beans home with him. His vanilla ice cream recipe is kept at the Library of Congress.

And vanilla is the top-selling ice cream flavor in the U.S. So, okay, okay, I’m obviously missing something here and need to turn my thoughts around!

Luckily, Sever’s book makes it easy to get into the groove. With recipes ranging from breakfast items to cookies, cakes to candies and custards, there’s something for everyone, and almost all skill levels. I also like that there is a balance of typical recipes (vanilla pound cake) and the not-so-typical (twinkie bundt cake and vanilla nougat candies). The book’s photography is stunning, and even the inside cover space is put to work, providing readers with a vanilla lover’s cheat sheet (so if you don’t have a whole vanilla bean, you can figure out the equivalent of extract you use) and a metric conversion chart.

I decided to take one of the recipes for a test drive and baked the Big, Soft Frosted Vanilla Sugar Cookies on page 77. I used Sever’s suggestion and added instant espresso to the cookie batter and frosting, making them Big, Soft Frosted Vanilla Latte Sugar Cookies. The recipe was easy enough to follow, though the first instruction of beating the butter and vanilla together until creamy does not yield creamy results (really, you need to beat the butter and sugar together first, THEN the vanilla, but I made it work).

I used brown sugar, since I’m running low on granulated, but otherwise stuck to Sever’s recipe. I cut the frosting recipe in half, however, because I didn’t want heaps of frosting taking away from the cookie (you can see my cookies in the top photo of the collage above).

The cookies are very vanilla-y, not so latte-ish, and I like how the edges are crisp but the centers are soft. However, I can taste the oil in the recipe (it calls for 1 cup butter and a 1/2 cup oil), which distracts me. If I were to make these again, I’d sub in butter for oil.

So, if you’re a vanilla fan, pick up Pure Vanilla for your bookshelf, or give it as a gift for any of your baking friends … they’ll definitely enjoy it!

Disclosure: I received a review copy from the publisher. However, my opinions are my own.

You’re probably familiar with cake pops, due to the work of Bakerella and her popular confection on sticks. Now, a cake ball is just like a cake pop, sans stick. And I think I prefer them that way.

There’s a bit more work involved in creating cake balls and pops than in cupcake making, since you’re baking the cake, cooling it, breaking it down into crumb, and then reconstituting it into bite-sized balls with a binder and final coating. It’s not difficult, but you’ll want to set aside enough time (or break it into multiple days), and having a good resource for recipes makes things much easier.

Enter Cake Balls: More Than 60 Delectable and Whimsical Sweet Spheres of Goodness by Dede Wilson. The books begins with a great upfront section that walks you through Dede’s techniques, preferred ingredients and equipment. If you take the time to read through her process, you are guaranteed to make perfect cake balls (granted you follow your recipes correctly!)

I like that she provides the baker with a wide assortment of bases, ranging from yellow and chocolate cake to brownies. From there, she provides a variety of binder recipes and finishes up with some coatings. I even learned that frosting isn’t your only option for binding; you can use jam, ganache, even liqueur!

Following this section, the reader is greeted by a variety of cake all recipes, many with gorgeous photos accompanying them. Dede has a recipe for everyone, and it seems easy enough to customize them even moreso to your liking (something I do a lot).

My only complaint is the book’s binding (picky, I know). The book is spiral bound with a perfect cardboard binding surrounding it. The spiral binding roughed up some of the pages, and also makes it sometimes difficult to turn the pages, but that’s certainly forgivable, given that you have so many recipes to play with.

Check back later in the week to see what kind of wild and booze-infused cake balls I came up with using Wilson’s book.

Disclosure: I received a review copy from the publisher. However, my opinions are my own.

I became a vegetarian last summer and I’ve felt amazing since I’ve been eating so many vegetables. But I want to learn more about cooking veg and I’m considering going all-out vegan after watching the excellent “Forks Over Knives.” I’d love to get a shot at winning this cookbook. Love that it will be on the table in under a half-hour!

BenBella, the publisher of Everyday Happy Herbivore will be sending Erin her free copy shortly. But everyone else, fret not! You can still pick up a copy for a super affordable price on Amazon and get cooking.

I picked Lindsay’s brain a little about baking (vegan baking fascinates me and I need to take the plunge to try it out), and now Lindsay and her publisher, BenBella Books, are back … with a giveaway!

So, if you’d like to get your hands on Lindsay’s book and begin tackling some of the 175 recipes within (that’s a lot of cooking!) leave a comment about your interest in vegan cooking and baking in the comment section below.

The winner will be selected via a random number generator. Enter by Tuesday, Jan. 24. For U.S. and Canadian readers only.

However, unlike me, there are PLENTY of people who adore lollipops and other stick-treats. And because of that, the 21st century has cake pops. And books about cake pops–and every other treat you can jam a stick into–like the one I recently received from Adams Media. Sweets on a Stick: More than 150 Kid-Friendly Recipes for Cakes, Candies, Cookies, and Pies on the Go!, by Australian blogger Linda Vandermeer, covers everything from cake pops to pie pops, and keeps each recipe kid friendly. This makes baking and decorating a family project, and I think that’s fantastic.

The content is broken down into easy-to-digest chapters and the recipes are well written. One drawback is that I wish there was a photograph to go with each recipe, especially since these are pretty decorating/design-heavy treats (I like to check my work). My favorite project in the book is the Big Mouth Monster Pops. I love how weird they look (especially the ones with 3 eyes!).

And now, as an added bonus, I’d like to offer up a copy of Sweets on a Stick for any readers who might like to sit down and do some baking with their kids, nieces/nephews, grandkids, borrowed-children from the neighbor next door. Leave me a comment if you’re interested and I’ll contact you for your shipping address. First come/first served!

Disclosure: I received a review copy from the publisher. However, my opinions are my own.

I received Sugar Rush unsolicited from Brava Books and I figured this could go one of two ways: the book could be entertaining, or utter crap. Luckily for me and you, it was the former.

Coming out in January 2012 and being followed up with another Cupcake Club Romance title–Sweet Stuff–in February, Donna Kauffman’s Sugar Rush takes place on a sweet and sleepy island on the coast of Georgia. Protagonist Leilani has left the fast-paced world of high-end pastries and celebrity ched-owned Gataeu for a quaint southern town and her very own cupcake shop (sounds good to me). Everything seems to be going to plan … that is until that very chef–Baxter Dunne–shows up on her island to film part of his new TV show in her bakeshop.

Romance and a little hot and heavy action (it starts in Chapter 13) ensue and the book wraps up with a fairly realistic yet still happy ending. You can’t beat that, can you?

Would I consider this great literature? Not really, but for a “romance” novel it was still smart and fun. Leilani, while often very confused and torn between her heart and head, is a very smart woman and a small business owner. I dig that. It’s also noted on the back cover that Kauffman did extensive research into baking and even has her own blog! Check it out at Cakes by the Cup.

Disclosure: I received a review copy from the publisher. However, my opinions are my own.

Anyone who knows me and my cupcakes knows I don’t go for the over-the-top decorated cupcakes–often made with inedible or barely tasty toppers–and that I wouldn’t call my cupcakes “cute” most of the time. So my interest was piqued by The Butch Bakery Cookbook by David Arrick with Janice Kollar, Arrick’s bakery consultant and winner of the Food Network’s Ultimate Recipe Showdown.

Since receiving this book shortly before our late September trip to Denver, I have poured over it numerous times. From the recipes to photography and book design, The Butch Bakery Cookbook seriously delivers. And while I could do without some of the bro attitude speckled throughout the text, I get it: This is a bakery that was started by a guy FOR other guys.

In the past, I’ve received baking books and saw a couple of recipes I’d like to try; but in this case, it’s more like what recipes do I want to pass on? A number of the cupcakes are similar to my own creations, but then there are others that have me smacking my forehead and saying “Why didn’t I think of that?!” This means my taste testers will be in for a treat once I pick the recipe I want to make from the book.

I also found this BusinessWeek article, “The Macho (Cupcake) Man” about David Arrick and Butch Bakery to be a pretty interesting read. I was a little put out by the fact that Arrick isn’t a baker … instead he’s the mastermind behind the operations. But because of his quirky take on cupcakes, he’s managed to employ bakers and a handful of other people (the article mentions that he hired people laid off in the recession–something that happened to him, too), and that’s cool.

If you’re into cupcakes, booze and don’t give a damn about cutesy frills and glitter, definitely check out The Butch Bakery Cookbook. Just be aware that Arrick and Kollar’s recipes are for manly jumbo cupcakes, so the recipes typically translate into 16-18 cupcake batches with a slightly different baking time. But they explain that early on in the book, so you’re all set!

Disclosure: I requested a review copy from the publisher, which they happily sent me. However, my opinions are my own.

While I had mentioned previously that I was a little unsure about the recipe, I kept to it (with my little addition of vanilla) and was pleasantly surprised. The cookies are a bit delicate, but the flavor is definitely there. It’s more of an adult-chocolate flavor: not super sweet, but still rich.

The salt—in this case my sel gris because I couldn’t get a hold of flaked sea salt—is crucial. Don’t even bother with these cookies if you’re not willing to sprinkle some salt on them. They just won’t taste the same, and you will have wasted your time and ingredients.

I’m still waiting on some comments from my taste testers, but all in all I would call this a successful cookie recipe. And I got a lot of practice twisting dough into pretzel shapes, so maybe this means I should make real pretzels soon!

Ingredients
560 g flour
60 g cocoa powder
120 g confectioners sugar
3 sticks butter
2 eggs, separated
2 tbsp heavy cream
2 tsp vanilla
Raw sugar (or sanding sugar)
Sel gris flakes (or flaked sea salt)

Directions
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit and position the racks upper- and lower-middle positions. Line 2 large baking sheets with bakers silicone or parchment paper. Mix 1-2 tbsp of water with the egg whites and whisk to combine; set aside.

In a medium bowl combine flour and cocoa set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment mix the butter and sugar until thoroughly blended. Add one egg at a time and beat for 2 minutes until fluffy, then add the vanilla. Add the dry ingredients gradually and beat at low speed just until combined, adding the heavy cream at the end.

The dough will be a bit dry and firm; using a tablespoon, scoop out dough and roll into balls. From there, roll the dough into 8″-11″ ropes. Position in a U shape on the baking sheet, then cross over twist, and make a pretzel shape. Continue until all dough is rolled out and shaped.

Brush the cookies with the egg white mixture, then sprinkle heavily with the raw or sanding sugar. Sprinkle the sea salt sparingly on each cookie.

Bake for 17-20 minutes. Let the cookies rest on the cookie sheet for 5-10 minutes, then remove and place on a wire cooling rack for 30-60 minutes. Store in an airtight container.
(Recipe doubled and adapted slightly from The Art of the Cookie)

This recipe had me scratching my head a little bit. Where was the salt IN the cookies? This was new … nevertheless, I stuck with the original recipe, doubling it and adding a little vanilla (because really, shouldn’t we always add a little vanilla?)

These are labor-intensive cookies when it comes to shaping them (and getting the sugar and salt to actually stick), but I like their visual effect. While the original recipe in the book states that it yields 25 cookies, I ended up with 42 out of a double yield; I think I made a couple of my cookies a bit on the big side.