On the Shelf: The Cake Cookbook

          Many cookbooks have good cake recipes, but few have exclusively good cake recipes. All Cakes Considered by Melissa Gray is one of those cookbooks. Melissa Gray is a staff member of the radio show All Things Considered, a year of baking cakes and testing them on her coworkers has produced this wonderful book. It’s small and thick, the kind of book that fits on a bookshelf, with carefully worded directions and stories this book quickly became one of my favorite baking books. Whenever I’m in the mood for a moist rich cake (which happens a lot) I reach for this book, and flip through the pages until a found the perfect cake.

Dark Chocolate Peppermint Patty Cake

Triple Chocolate Orange Passion Cake

Tunnel of Fudge Cake

         I love this book for many reasons. The first of which is that it is geared towards the baking beginner. It's directions are straightforward, easy to follow, and detailed. The difficulty of the cakes progresses with the book, the final cakes have as many as six layers. With each new technique comes an introductory paragraph explaining why, when, and how to use the new skill. As a woman with a full time job most of the cakes Gray has put in this book are not time consuming or complex. There are a exceptions such as the Heaven and Hell cake and the Dark Chocolate Peppermint Patty cake, but these are well worth the time, frustration, or both that it takes to make them.  
          Another reason to love this book is the diversity of the cakes. There is a cake for everyone in this book, from Sweet Potato Pound to Devil's Food with Raspberry jam to Rum Drenched Vanilla Cake this book has it all. With bundt cakes and layer cakes, with angel food cakes and fruity cakes, this book has a cake for every special occasion, holiday, and season.  It appeals with many different tastes and textures. Despite the different recipes there is not a multitude of special ingredients needed to make these cakes. Most frostings are milk, water, or cream cheese based, and most cakes use flavorings found in an ordinary kitchen, making these cakes affordable as well as delicious. There are also very few pans needed in this recipe, all but a few recipes call for either two eight or nine inch round pan, or a bundt pan.
With her witty personal stories about each cake and the troubleshooting tips this book is an entertaining read as well as a solid cookbook. Gray slips in bits of her life surrounding baking give you peeks of sexist uncles and cranky ovens, similar to the problems we all face. Through enjoyable accounts of sticky situations she offers advice on buying ingredients, finding good recipes, and traveling with cakes. With her sage insights, her book teaches you how to be a baker as much as it teaches you how to bake cakes.
This book is full of great recipes and stories, after owning it for just a few months the pages of my copy were already sticky and spattered with batter. It’s a book that’s easy to love and use. The cakes range from fancy and chocolatey to simple and spicy, and back again. This is one of the best gifts I’ve ever received, I unwrapped it on Christmas morning four years ago, and I never stopped baking from it.