Product Description

Forget everything
you’ve heard about
health-conscious baking.

Simply, BabyCakes is your key to an enlightened, indulgent, sweets-filled future. This is important news not only for parents whose children have allergies, for vegans, and for others who struggle with food sensitivities, but also for all you sugar-loving traditionalists. The recipes in these pages prove that there is a healthy alternative to recklessly made desserts, one that doesn't sacrifice taste or texture.

Having experimented endlessly with alternative, health-conscious sweeteners, flours, and thickeners, Erin McKenna, the proprietress of beloved bakery BabyCakes NYC, developed these recipes–most are gluten-free, all are without refined sugar–in hopes of combating her own wheat, dairy, and sugar sensitivities. In BabyCakes, she shares detailed information about the ingredients she uses (coconut flour, xanthan gum, and agave nectar, for example) and how to substitute them properly for common ones–all the while guiding you safely through techniques she’s spent years perfecting.

When BabyCakes NYC opened on Manhattan’s Lower East Side in 2005, it helped propel the gluten-free and vegan baking movement into a new stratosphere. Suddenly there was a destination for those with wheat allergies and other dietary restrictions–and, soon enough, celebrities and dessert lovers of every kind–to indulge freely in delectable muffins and teacakes, brownies and cookies, pies and cobblers.

Enclosed within these pages are all the “secrets” you’ll need to bring the greatness of BabyCakes NYC into your own home as well as raves and recommendations from devotees such as Natalie Portman, Jason Schwartzman, Mary-Louise Parker, Zooey Deschanel, and Pamela Anderson.

For confectionists of all kinds, delicious alternatives lie within: Red Velvet Cupcakes, Chocolate Shortbread Scones with Caramelized Bananas, Strawberry Shortcake, and BabyCakes NYC’s celebrated frosting (so delicious it has fans tipping back frosting shots!), to name just a few. Finally, Erin’s blissful desserts are yours for the baking!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7181 in Books
• Published on: 2009-05-05
• Released on: 2009-05-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 9.36" h x .65" w x 7.78" l, 1.38 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 144 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780307408839
• Condition: New
• Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Diagnosed with wheat and dairy allergies in 2004, McKenna faced a life free of cupcakes, pies and brownies. Refusing to accept such a bleak future, McKenna did her research and opened Babycakes, a vegan, gluten-free bakery that has since been warmly embraced by cupcake-crazy Manhattanites. Here she shows readers how to create vegan and gluten-free versions of favorites like apple pie, chocolate chip cookies, gingerbread and Babycakes's infamous cupcakes (named best in the city by New York magazine in 2006). Her like-for-like recipes (including Healthy Hostess cupcakes and ingenious methods for dying frostings without artificial food coloring) are sure to satisfy discerning palates, and her emphasis on the traditional (blondies, biscuits, red velvet cupcakes, etc.) make her recipes easy to incorporate into the regular rotation. A number of specialty ingredients are required (agave nectar, xanthan gum, coconut oil, etc.), which can be pricey but are fairly easy to source (online vendors are listed).; Happily, however, McKenna keeps the ingredient list to a minimum. Those new to gluten- and sugar-free baking may be intimidated, but McKenna is friendly, patient, enthusiastic and encouraging. Those with dietary restrictions, and their families, will find this cookbook a sweet revelation.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
"In this book, Erin has finally shared her trade secrets — the ingredients and techniques that lend BabyCakes' desserts the flavors, textures, and happiness-factor you'd find in the best patisserie. The highest praise I can offer is this: follow her recipes to the letter and you'll fool them every time."
—Tom Colicchio (from the Foreword)

"At BabyCakes NYC I can eat what I crave without harming my lovely animal friends–or myself. Every since that first fateful day, I’ve been waiting for this cookbook."
—Natalie Portman

"I have multiple food sensitivities…and I’d pretty much given up on the idea that I might be able to have a worthy treat every again. I was so excited to discover BabyCakes NYC, because not only can I eat everything they bake, it’s all delicious!"
—Zooey Deschanel

"The BabyCakes NYC banana bread is the best I've ever had and something I simply can't live without."
—Mary Louise Parker

"Thank all that is holy for BabyCakes NYC…"
—Pamela Anderson

About the Author
ERIN MCKENNA is the chef and owner of BabyCakes NYC, a bakery with outposts in New York City and West Hollywood. She received the prestigious Best Cupcake award in 2006 from New York magazine. Erin has been a guest on Martha Stewart Television and Food Network and has been featured in the New York Times, Food & Wine, Modern Bride, VegNews, Harper’s Bazaar, In Style, and O, the Oprah Magazine.