What is your favourite baking book?

[ssaw2012]

I am looking for delicious brownies and other chocolate cakes, muffins, sponge cakes, puddings.
I checked the last edition of the Bake off but it is not what I am looking for. I need lots of pictures, delicious dough, delicious cream. I am not into cup cakes though. Perhaps, someone can suggest me their favourite books and I will check them in the book shop or online. I just need reassurance that it the recipies are worth trying.

I like the look fo Good Food: 101 Cakes & Bakes: Tried and tested Recipes
www.amazon.co.uk/Good-Food-Cakes-tested-Recipes/dp/0563521147/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1352904353&sr=1-5

I use Mary Berry's Ultimate Cake Book as a basis for most of my baking; sometimes with adjustments. It's great and has a good range of different cakes.

This... I prefer it to sex.

this is the only book of hers that I LOVE. Every single thing I have baked from it is amazing, and there is a WHOLE CHAPTER on chocolate. And another on Christmas. What more could you ask for...

Leith's Baking Bible. It's fab!

Rebecca Rather's 'The Pastry Queen' - From Texas, she is a pastry chef with her own cafe/bakery. All her books have savoury recipes too but the cakes/bakes are to die for. And they all work

www.amazon.co.uk/The-Pastry-Queen-Rebecca-Rather/dp/1580085628/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_2

Another USA book is NYC's Magnolia Bake books. all you need to buy is an American cup measure for a few pounds and off you go-

www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-Magnolia-Bakery-Cookbook-ebook/dp/B008X82PKO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1352915986&sr=8-1

Here's a British cake book-

www.amazon.co.uk/Eat-Me-Stupendous-Self-Raising-According/dp/0091925118/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1352916216&sr=1-1

And good old Annie Bell-

www.amazon.co.uk/Gorgeous-Cakes-Published-Association-Magazine/dp/1856266141/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1352916280&sr=1-2

Domestic Goddess.

Also like Donna Hay Modern Classics 2.

Also Dan Lepard 'Short and Sweet'
Leon Book of Baking
Rachel Allens 'Bake'
Junior's Restaurant cookbook
Sue Lawrence- Book of Baking (totally reliable)
Perfect Cakes Every Time -Victoria Coombe
British Baking -Oliver Peyton
Green & Blacks Ultimate chocolate recipes

This is a favourite of mine too-

www.amazon.co.uk/Baked-America-generous-brownies-cupcakes/dp/0091940966/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1352916446&sr=1-1

And I love Dorie Greenspan and she has a good blog too.

www.amazon.co.uk/Baking-From-My-Home-Yours/dp/0618443363/ref=pd_sim_b_11

I absolutely LOVe the Peyton & Byrne British baking book!!!!

OOh, Migonette, you listed some of my very favourites there! Dan Lepard is probably my no 1, with Dorie at No 2. Agree that Sue Lawrence is a never-fail. Also love Oliver Peyton's book, and think that Rachel Allen's choc cake from Bake is the best std choc cake ever!

I also like Nigella's ...Goddess. And Mary Berry's Baking Bible. And Paul Hollywood's How to Bake is fab too.

For pastry, I like Michel Roux and Bourke Street Bakery. For bread I like Dough and Crust by Richard Bertinet.

I bloody LOVE baking books!

I love Australian Womans Weekly baking books. The recipes always work. I have a huge one called 'Bake' which I got last yr for about £25 but it must be out of print as selling for £65 on Amazon now. Maybe its not quite that good!

Thank you everyone for the suggestions . I think I will need to go to the book shop and show some of your suggested books to my children. One of them is very fussy when it comes to cakes. Last night I showed him a picture of deliciously-looking chocolate cake and he did not like it. That would be a waste of money if I buy a book online without checking the pictures with my fussy one first. But I do need to know whether the recipes work or not and that is why your comments have been really appreciated. Also, there are lots of comments on amazon. It is worth sometimes reading the negative first in case there is something extremely wrong with the book. Some comments say the book has a lack of pictures or the recipes have been poorly written. People then go online and ask others for help because it is very hard to figure out why something in the recipe is not working out.

Nigella's 'Domestic Goddess' is more or less the only baking book I use.

It has a really good variety of small & large cakes, different flavours, textures and levels of difficulty.

I don't think I've ever made anything from it that hasn't turned out well.

I only made one cake from Nigella's book and that was a Brownies cake. I copied the recipe like 9 years ago from another student. I think it came out very well. But the ingredient list was not cheap. Lots of eggs, butter, lots of high-quality chocolate (I used Lindt and at that time it was around £1.00). May be this recipe comes from the same book.

The brownies in her book are totally delicious - everyone I've ever given them to has loved them. Just keep an eye to make sure you don't overcook them...

My kids love brownies but they also want me to bake a loaf made of yeast. I think the one which was made by Paul Hollywood from Bake Off. It looked really yummy.

I use Sainsbury's Basics plain chocolate for cooking with - after a friend of mine who's a chef recommended it!

Is the loaf you mention a plaited one? The recipe is on BBC food website.

I use that quite a lot, although not so much for baking but general recipes.

DumSpiroSpero, it is the plaited one. Thanks!
I often bake using just cocoa powder and the taste is still nice.

Another vote for Leith's baking bible. Completely foolproof ime, but it is short on pictures.