Lauren Chattman - Moms Big Book of Baking, Reprint: 200 Simple, Foolproof Family Favorites for Birthday Parties, Bake Sales, and More

For the children in my family:
Rose, Eve, Sophia, Grace, Sam, Cara, John, and Ian

The Harvard Common Press
535 Albany Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02118

Copyright 2001 by Lauren Chattman
Photographs copyright 2008 by Becky Luigart-Stayner

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publisher.

Printed in China

The ISBN for this hardcover edition of Mom's Big Book of Baking is 978-1-55832-395-7.
It was originally published with the ISBN 1-55832-192-6.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Mom's big book of baking : 200 simple, foolproof recipes for delicious family treats
to get you through every birthday party, class picnic, potluck, bake sale, holiday, and
no-school day / Lauren Chattman.
p. cm.
Includes index.

ISBN 1-55832-192-6 (hc : alk. paper)ISBN 1-55832-194-2 (pbk : alk. paper)
1. Baking. 2. Quick and easy cookery. I. Title.
TX763.C49 2001
641.8'15dc21

2001024369

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Cover design by Night & Day Design
Interior design by Marysarah Quinn
Photography by Becky Luigart-Stayner
Food styling by Jan Moon
Prop styling by Fonda Shaia
Illustrations by Laura Tedeschi

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Thanks to Angela Miller, who came up with the idea for this book and then helped me through every stage of its development; to Dan Rosenberg, who first wanted me to write a baking book for Harvard Common Press; to Bruce Shaw, for making sure that it happened; to Maggie Carr, for smart and careful copyediting; to Valerie Cimino, who keeps me in close touch with everything that happens at HCP; to Adrienne Anifant, who often does her job in spite of me. Skye Stewart has worked hard to put the word out about this book. Thanks to Virginia Downes and Jodi Marchowsky for their work on the cover and for producing such a pretty book, and to Becky Luigart-Stayner for the beautiful photos. Pam Hoenig is an editor of unsurpassed intelligence, humor, and integrity. I was surprised and delighted to find myself working with her again.

It would not have been possible to bake so much in such a short time without Yvette Willock, babysitter and good friend. If I know anything about family baking, it is because of my daughters Rose and Eve, whose likes and dislikes certainly contributed to the shaping of this book. And thanks once again to my husband, Jack Bishop, the best baking partner ever, whose contributions to this book are too numerous to mention.

Before you had kids, you had a particular relationship with your oven. Maybe you were uninterested in cooking. Like one of my sisters during her single years, you might even have used this large, empty box to store the sweaters that wouldn't fit in your closet. Or you may have been a passionate baker who clipped recipes from Gourmet's "You Asked for It" column and attempted to duplicate desserts from the country's best restaurants for your frequent dinner party guests.

Either way, once you had kids you probably started using your oven differently. Out went the sweaters and in went the slice-and-bake cookies. The individual chocolate souffls are history; chocolate cupcakes have taken their place. Like everything else in your life, your cooking now revolves around your kids. Not only must you satisfy their basic nutritional needs; you must also keep in mind their likes and dislikes. You must produce items that you probably haven't made since you yourself were in seventh gradecupcakes with sprinkles for a classroom birthday party, marshmallow treats for a snow dayitems essential to kids' happiness, if not their health. Needless to say, you now have about as much time to bake as you have to take that shower in the morning while the little ones attempt to break down the bathroom door.

Why bake at all, you might ask, if you barely have time for basic grooming? First, let me say this: If making cupcakes for the whole class means staying up past midnight, by all means buy them at the supermarket on the way to school. You will not enjoy something that has robbed you of sleep. But if you do have a little free time before bed, why not spend it making something good to eat? Sure, homemade cupcakes will always be superior to store bought, but the benefits of baking go beyond better tasting cupcakes.

The activity itselfselecting the recipe, mixing the batter, spreading the frosting, decorating the cupcakes with sprinklescan be creative, relaxing, and fun. Baking is a therapeutic way to spend what little free time you have by yourself, when your kids are napping, in school, or in bed. Involving your kidsin deciding what to bake, gathering the ingredients, choosing the decorationswill give them a sense of accomplishment, help them develop good taste, and teach them a few things about cooking (and maybe math and science) at an early age.

It sounds corny, but it's true: the blueberry muffins, blondies, or popovers you regularly make for and with your child become the stuff of memories. If your mom made apple pie every year for Thanksgiving or the world's best marble pound cake, you know what I mean. Baking is certainly not a requirement for the job of motherhood, and it's true that some of the world's best moms couldn't tell you the difference between molasses and maple syrup. But baking is one of the sweetest and most memorable ways to nourish and spend time with your kids. Who knows? Invest in that first jar of molasses and they might still be talking about mom's famous gingerbread twenty years from now.

Before you can make any warm and fuzzy memories, you need the right recipes, ones that will allow you to bake without stress and fear. Moms Big Book of Baking gathers together over two hundred kid-friendly baking recipes, all of them tested in a real mom's kitchen (mine) and tasted by real kids (mine, too). This book is my own recipe file, which I began to compile over five years ago, when my first daughter was born. Back then I was embarking on a career as a pastry chef. Little did I know that as my family grew I would become more interested in making chocolate pudding than chocolate souffls. But that's what happened, and this book is the result.

This book comes out of my own particular experience as a pastry chef and baking mom. When my older daughter was a newborn, I left my job as a teacher to attend a professional pastry and baking course at night. At 5 P.M. my husband took over at home. I left our apartment for cooking school and learned to bake the kind of fancy cakes you might see at a Parisian patisserie. We moved to the East End of Long Island, and I took a job as the pastry chef at a casual but chic Hamptons restaurant where I made desserts for New York sophisticates on vacation.

While I was making grown-up desserts at school and work, I was making simple pancakes, muffins, and cookies for my family. The two types of baking could not have been more different. The restaurant desserts required special equipment, expensive ingredients, and sauces and garnishes to dress them up. The stuff I made at home was simple and unadorned. But both the restaurant desserts and the homemade cookies satisfied my sweet tooth and gave me satisfaction in a job well done.