Reese - Make the bread, buy the butter: what you should and shouldnt cook from scratch -- over 120 recipes for the best homemade foods

Jennifer Reese is the former book critic for Entertainment Weekly . She lives in Northern California with her husband, children, and a few too many animals. She writes about her 1,000-plus cookbook collection at www.tipsybaker.com .

For testing recipes, sharing recipes, walks, and friendship, thanks to Melanie Hamburger, Layne Huff, Kathy Kirkham, Chris Myers, Mary Ann Myers, Mary Pols, Tom Russell, Laura Smoyer, Lisa Swanson, Stephanie Trimble, and the DOT sistersbut especially Marleen Roggow and Debra Turner. Thanks to Thom Geier, who, whether he knows it or not, got the ball rolling, and to my agent, Steve Troha, who kept the ball rolling. My wonderful editors, Leslie Meredith and Donna Loffredo, gently pointed me in the right direction, and Suzanne Fass raised my game. Thanks to my father, John Reese, a better cook than I ever knew, who appreciates my vermouth. Thanks to Isabel, my favorite baking companion; Owen, a fellow chicken enthusiast; and Mark, who put up with the goats, the ducks, the hulking prosciutto, and me. I could not have gotten through the last eighteen months without my sister, Justine Reese. Writing a book wasnt the half of it. Justine, thank you.

Praise for Make the Bread, Buy the Butter

I loved this book. In her inspiring and hilarious voice, Reese reminds me why I actually should take the time to make from scratch things that I buy, and gives me a pass on those things that I really dont want to make myself anyway. I laughed out loud.

Carla Hall, author of Cooking with Love

Im always interested in what Jennifer says about food, and about how to retain the pleasure of eating it in an increasingly confusing world. Plus, shes convinced me to try making my own Camembert. Jennifers is a journey Im thrilled to embark upon.

Julie Powell, author of Julie and Julia

I knew this important, original, and necessary book would be informativeand it is, very. What I didnt expect: pure entertainment in an original, fresh voice that will make readers feel they have a smart new best friend. I lapped this up in one sitting, learned a bunch, laughed out loudand am about to try several of the recipes. You nailed it, Jennifer Reese!

Mollie Katzen, author of Moosewood Cookbook

From hot dog buns to Pop-Tarts, she reveals whether its better to buy it or make it, accounting for the cost, hassle and rate of success. Happily, she dispenses this practical know-how with a crackling sense of humor, making this book a fun read. The scope and utility of this book make it worthy of space in your collection, especially... when youre looking for fast and interesting gifts to make in the kitchen. Plus Reeses honesty is refreshing and inspiring; she goes from a hilarious review of the 1970s Earth-mother bible Laurels Kitchen to making a modern-day case for baking.

The Oregonian

Now that Michael Pollan has made us all aspire to be politically correct foodies, a certain angst has cast its shadow over the average American home. One of the big issues is, should I make my own food and thus assure myself that it contains only the healthiest and freshest of ingredients, or is it more practical to just buy it somewhere. Reese tackles this question for a number of common foods and she writes in a witty, conversational style that wins you over right from the start.

The Sacramento Bee

Her experiences led her to create a great blog, Tipsy Baker, and this awesome book. Shes very sarcastic, which makes me happy. Jennifer tells it like it is, from a simple bread recipe to raising chickens, and breaks everything down by price, reward, and hassle factor.

TrueFoodMovement.com

Its empowering to know I can cure bacon, brew vanilla, age Camembert, extract honey from a hive, and behead a chicken, even if I have no desire to do at least one of those things ever again. Even if, in the end, I spent more money than I saved. (A few costly projects like the chickens and the bees ate up all the savings of from scratch cooking). Big food companies flatter us by telling us how busy we are and they simultaneously convince us that we are helpless. I am moderately busy, but not all that helpless. Neither are you. Everything I did in the course of my scratch-cooking erawith the possible exceptions of eviscerating poultry and stuffing hot dogswas very, very easy.

But the more helpless we feel, the lower those food companies move the bar of our expectations, and the bar is now very low at your local supermarket. Trust me. I have eaten my way through mine. It makes me quite furious when I think about the sicketating powdered hollandaise sauce, the extortionate price of the vanilla extracts, the pathetic bread, the soups sweetened with corn syrup, the abomination of Pillsbury creamy vanilla canned frosting that contains neither cream nor vanilla. It upsets me that we pay as much for these foods as we do.

Almost everything is better when its homemade. While this may have started out as opinion (though Im not sure it did), I would now state it confidently as fact. Almost everything. But not everything. Which makes me inordinately happy. Because I think its reassuring that you can walk into a supermarket and buy a bag of potato chips and a tub of rice pudding that are better than anything you can make at home. I wish there were more foods like that. I really dont want to spend my life standing over a stove, muttering about the evils of ConAgra and trans fats. It seems a tragic waste to shape ones life around doctrinaire rejection of industrial food. Which means, I suppose, both insisting on high standards most of the time and then, sometimes, relaxing them.

Moreover, in the United States, at least, it can be hard to feel connected to your mothers cooking or your grandmothers without making some concessions to packaged foods. Im unwilling to give those connections up, at least not all of them.

My mother wasnt much of a baker. On the rare occasions when she did bake a cake, she always made the same cake, which we called Skippys Apricot Cake. You can find variants of this recipe on the Internetit clearly wasnt the brainchild of my great-aunt Skippy, though in our family she got all the credit. Im quite sure it was an invention of a home economist at the Duncan Hines company, but Ive never seen the recipe printed precisely as we made it.

I loved this cake as a child, but I grew up to become a high-minded, adventurous, and snobbish baker who disdained cake mix, and when I went to my mothers house and she would pull this cake out of the freezer and offer me a slice, I would say, no thanks. Didnt she care that there were other cakes, better cakes, cakes that didnt involve mix? I wanted her to know I didnt approve by never once, after the age of fifteen or so, accepting a slice of this cake.

Recently, I was going through my mothers recipe file and discovered six copies of the recipe, each written out in her own hand on an index card. Why six? Was it in case she lost one? Was it to give to admiring friends who requested it? Why didnt more people request it? Ingrates. Starting with me. The cake is a wonder, the recipe a treasure. It takes a couple of minutes to stir together, and I make it all the time now, as does my sister. Our children love it. I hope they always will. I would rather it didnt involve a mix, but its an almost perfect cake, a cake that strikes the balance between mindlessly shopping and compulsively making. You must buy the mix to make this cake.

SKIPPYS APRICOT CAKE

Butter, for the pan

1 box Duncan Hines Lemon Supreme cake mix

1 cup canned apricot nectar, such as Kerns

cup neutral vegetable oil

cup granulated sugar

4 large eggs

GLAZE

1 cup sifted confectioners sugar

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9-inch tube or Bundt pan.