The Art of Baking: a Practical Guide for the Barely-holding-on Beginner, the Adequately-equipped Home Baker, and the Aspiring Professional

The Art of BakingA Practical Guide for the Barely-Holding-On Beginner, the Adequately-Equipped Home Baker, and the Aspiring Professionalby R. A. CalkinsBake with clarity, not chaos. Whether you’ve only just learned to turn an oven on or you’re trying to run a consistent small batch operation, The Art of Baking gives you a single, plainspoken manual that teaches what actually matters: the tools and pantry worth owning, the techniques that produce dependable results, and the baker’s thinking that turns mistakes into steady improvement.This book is organized around three real readers—beginners who need the fewest tools and the most forgiving recipes; enthusiastic home bakers ready to improve consistency and skill; and aspiring professionals who want scalable, reliable methods. You’ll find clear checklists for mise en place, simple rules for measuring and temperature, and a practical hierarchy of equipment so you buy what helps, not clutter your kitchen.Inside you’ll discover:• Foundations and mindset — Why weighing ingredients matters, how oven calibration changes outcomes, and the one habit that stops most failures.• Techniques explained — Creaming, all-in-one, folding, kneading, and lamination, described in readable, testable steps so you can reproduce results.• Baking chemistry at a glance — What leaveners, fats, sugars, and salts do (and why), with rules you’ll actually remember when your timer rings.• Scalable methods — Use baker’s percentages and straightforward scaling advice so small recipes become reliable large ones.• Troubleshooting and diagnostics — Fast checks for dense cakes, flat cookies, gummy bread, and soggy bottoms, with the practical fixes that work.• Exercises and forgiving recipes — Mini-projects that build skills: cookies, quickbreads, enriched loaves, and simple laminated dough practice.• Professional habits — Efficient workflow, timing strategies, and notes on equipment choices for volume and precision.This is not a book of intimidating theory or inaccessible techniques. It’s a workshop in print: notes to take, experiments to run, and observations to record. You’ll leave each chapter with a short practice assignment and the specific variable to change next time so progress is steady and measurable. If you want professional polish, the book tells you how to get there; if you want comfort food and reliable family favorites, it gives you recipes and methods that forgive small lapses.If you’re ready to stop guessing and start producing predictable, delicious bakes, The Art of Baking will give you the tools, the rules, and the thinking to make it happen—one intentional bake at a time.