Sky High or Gastroanomalies

Sky High

Author: Alisa Huntsman

A classic layer cake has always been the best party pleaser, but this cookbook takes dessert to a whole new level. Sky High celebrates the triple-layer cake in all its glorious incarnations with more than 40 decadent and delicious recipes. The wide range of flavors will appeal to anyone with a sweet tooth. The book features such delights as Boston Cream Pie, Mile-High Devil's Food Cake, and Key West Cake. There are even three astonishingly beautiful (and totally do-able) wedding cakes! From luscious chocolate creations to drizzled caramel confections, take simple layer cakes to new heights with Sky High.

Table of Contents:

Introduction     8
Baking basics     13
Cake varieties     14
Baking techniques     15
Ingredients     23
Equipment     31
Chocolate cakes     41
Vanilla cakes     67
Fruit-flavored cakes     95
Nut and spice cakes     125
Cakes with a world of flavor     149
Holiday and special-occasion cakes     173
Sources for ingredients, equipment, and decorating supplies     211
Index     217
Table of equivalents     222

Interesting book: How to Cook Everything or Killer Ribs

Gastroanomalies: Questionable Culinary Creations from the Golden Age of American Cookery

Author: James Lileks

It was a time of innocence, nuclear families, traditional values . . . and BAD FOOD.

In an era where cooks wanted to put their best foot forward, there was no end to the creative, cost-efficient, and cream-based dishes that disgraced the family dinner table, the cocktail party, or the neighborhood BBQ. Recipes involving ingredients like ground meat, bananas, and cottage cheese sound innocent enough—unless you mix them all together in a strange attempt to cover every food group at once.

In Gastroanomalies, James Lileks gathers another remarkable assortment of dishes that once inspired cooks to brave new heights but now inspire sour stomachs and thoughts of “how did I survive?” Highlighted with excerpts from bizarre cookbooks (like Joan Crawford shilling for Bisquick), dubious images (is it meat or chocolate ice cream?), ads heralding the latest in kitchen technology (how about a bacon-egger?), and Lileks’s acerbic, off-the-wall commentary (“Put your ear close, and you can actually hear the meat screaming in terror”), Gastroanomalies is an irresistible retro documentation of a bygone era when artisanal cheese and vegetables lightly steamed (not boiled to mush) were still light-years away. Gastroanomalies will have foodies, baby boomers, and lovers of kitsch in stitches.