Last February we started our Cookbook Club, and shortly thereafter we heard loud and clear that you wanted a baking-focused club, too. So in April, we started our Baking Club, and now, on the brink of the Club’s first birthday, we’ve grown to include well over 13,000 members.
That’s a lot of people, but much like the Cookbook Club, it still feels like an intimate group. If you’ve been wanting to bake more, you’d be hard-pressed to find a kinder, more encouraging group of people to support you along the way. And if you haven’t joined yet, now’s a perfect time, because for the month of April we’ll be revisiting every cookbook we’ve covered so far, so you can get up to speed. Here’s a month-by-month overview of the Baking Club’s first year:
We kicked off the Baking Club with Club favorite Dorie Greenspan and her most recent cookbook, Dorie’s Cookies. Greenspan has been an active participant in the Club, so it’s no surprise that her books were selected two more times in our first year!
In May, we all broke bread with Uri Scheft as we baked our way through his book, Breaking Breads, churning out many loaves of challah and focaccia along the way.
In June we covered Luisa Weiss’s Classic German Baking. In the process, we learned all about quark and baked German treats from Franzbrötchen to Apfel-Marzipan-Kuchen and more.
In July we invited ourselves into Dorie Greenspan’s Paris kitchen as we baked French treats from her book Baking Chez Moi.
Next, we were off to Boston with Joanne Chang’s first cookbook, Flour, filled with recipes from her bakery and café.
In September we made our way to San Francisco (we’re a jet-setting group! from the comfort of our kitchens, anyway) and baked up our fair share of croissants and tea cakes as we worked through Elisabeth M. Prueitt and Chad Robertson’s first cookbook, Tartine.
In October we tackled Christina Tosi’s Momofuku Milk Bar. We might have needed to pick up a few special supplies and ingredients to get going, but the stunning cakes that came out of the Club were worth it!
In November we celebrated classic American desserts as we baked through Stella Parks’s BraveTart (a Piglet contender!). We are lucky to still be learning from Parks, and she continues to pop back in the Club from time to time to help us solve baking conundrums, like gooey-centered blondies.
December was especially sweet, with lots of cakes from Helen Goh and Yotam Ottolenghi’s co-authored cookbook, Sweet.
We kicked off 2018 with Thomas Keller and Sebastien Rouxel’s Bouchon Bakery, and we were ready for an onslaught of fancy French pastries, but instead, many members eased into the year with muffins and coffee cakes.
Dorie Greenspan’s third appearance in our Club came in February with Baking: From My Home to Yours, and we all went nuts for blondies loaded with mix-ins.
All this month we’ve been baking through our own Erin McDowell’s The Fearless Baker, and have been lucky enough to learn from McDowell along the way. And now, you’re all caught up and ready to join in our birthday month celebration!
Tell us: Which of these books are looking forward to baking from in April?
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