i can’t think of a better way to wrap up the week- and our food day- at d*s than with this beautiful new typographical dessert cookbook from amanda woodward at woodward design. based in edmonton, amanda and her team created a limited edition typographical dessert cookbook that will be printed at the end of this month. there are eight recipes inside, each one with a fun typographical spin (the fonts are listed and sourced as well). you can pick up a copy right here at etsy for $20. thanks, amanda!

• living in: national velvet
• we like it wild: thanksgiving arrangement using ingredients from the supermarket
• new sneak peeks: alex marshall, susan williams of swans island, katie kirk of 8 hour day, sandrine place, anne lise kjaer
• diy projects: david stark’s twine snowmen, crocheted plastic bag placemats, pretty fabric pumpkins, vintage crate shelves
• before & afters: seating + office makeover, wendy’s elementary school to studio makeover, loveseat from swankyswell, nadia’s bathroom
• small measures with ashley: practicing gratitude
• new recipe: in the kitchen with oh joy’s frozen yogurt and mochi
• cookbook reviews: sweet tooth baking books
• misc.: new rugs from bev hisey, nyc stamp set from yellow owl workshop, wallpaper from eskayel, newsprint posters from the pencil factory, yellena james glass shades for schoolhouse electric,

So you’ve looked at Joy’s recipe and are ready to indulge your sweet tooth- so this week’s cookbooks are all about baking. It’s what I do the most of at home; my refrigerator is full of wrapped sections of cake (quarters for a tube pan, halves for a loaf) labeled with the type of desert and the book it came from. My husband has a very easy time every few days just going and pulling out what he’d like to have for breakfast or with his tea. The past few weeks, the second freezer drawer has enjoyed goodies from these three books below- I hope you’ll enjoy them as much as I did! -Kristina

Baking Unplugged by Nicole Rees (Wiley). Baking Unplugged is the hands down winner in my spot recipe testing. The recipes are good, easy, and practical. The simple philosophy behind the book is that you can make great desserts without any electrical equipment (except an oven, of course). The preliminary chapters at the beginning review tools, ingredients, methods, and how to read a recipe. The books chapters are then divided into types of baked goods, with no dearth of explanation of technique. The book is clear and concise, easy to understand. I wish I had had this book when I started out baking. This is a book for anyone who wants to get back to basics in the kitchen, someone who has a small kitchen with only a few tools, someone who is lazy and doesn’t feel like plugging in the equipment. It’s a perfect book for beginners– I am a firm believer in the ‘learn in the manual way’ in order to excel in the automated world. I really really like this book. One last important note– there are no photos at all in the book. But please don’t let this discourage you.

All Cakes Considered by Melissa Gray (Chronicle Books). For one year, the author (a producer at National Public Radio’s program All Things Considered) brought in a cake to work every Monday, and this book is the result. It is a fantastically entertaining book. The recipes are a mix between previously published recipes, and the author’s own (bequeathed by friends and family, or tweaked and ‘co-opted’ for personal use from other sources), so of course they have been tested and retested. What I love about the book is the author’s voice, the way the instructions are written, the stories, all of the written text. What I do not like about the book– you need a 10″ tube pan to make the majority of the recipes, or you need shortening. If you live in a place where it’s difficult to find either (especially the latter), you’re out of luck. Comb the internet to find a shortening alternative. If you can get over those two things (I’m still smarting), then this book is a winner. There’s even a chapter on non-cakes (cookies etc)!

The Craft of Baking by Karen DeMasco and Mindy Fox (Clarkson Potter). [TOP IMAGE ABOVE] I was so looking forward to this book, a collection of recipes which are a bit less common than you’d normally find in American baking books– recipes like like Lamington cupcakes, pine nut tart with rosemary cream, nut and cherry nougat. As a whole, the collection of recipes is elegant- definitely a notch above average. You’d make a great statement if you served one of these recipes to your friends. And although I had a bit of difficulty with the Ultimate Chocolate Brownies (The cooking time didn’t work out for me?), my shortcoming has been like a challenge to me, which has made me want to come back and try more recipes in the book, maybe toward Christmas when I usually try to bake up five to ten different baked goods and give little boxes of mixed goodies to friends as gifts (You always want unique things people haven’t tried before in those gift boxes). For people who like to experiment with different flavors and adapt recipes for different types of desserts, you’ll appreciate the notes after each recipe which offer tips on how to do just that! In sharp contrast with Baking Unplugged, there are plenty of pictures in this book of the final recipes up close, so you can compare and see how your efforts measure up! While the recipes are generally quite easy to execute, this is definitely the type of book for the person who believes that a tiny bit more effort can produce great desserts.

Living in Italy, I feel quite deprived of world cuisine and therefore have noticed that my collection of books dedicated to helping me satisfy those cravings has grown. Joel’s recipe for porcini tapioca cakes also happened to remind me of “world cuisine” coming all the way from Australia. So I thought I’d do a round up of a few ‘well-rounded’ cookbooks that offer a wide range of cuisine type, just in case you get bored easily. If you’re looking for more mushroom recipes, try A Cook’s Book of Mushrooms by Jack Czarnecki (Artisan). If, instead of mushrooms, you want to try out an easy chutney recipe, see the end of this post! Have you got a favorite cookbook with a wide variety of cuisines under one binding? -Kristina

CLICK HERE for the reviews and chili-pepper chutney recipe after the jump!

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This week, I thought I would focus on cookbooks with great food photography, since photography is becoming a bigger part of the food experience these days. There are a few new books out this season which I believe raise the bar in cookbooks. Why? They do not just deliver recipes. They deliver an entire food experience, from the location in which the food is enjoyed, to the environ in which the food is gathered, prepared, and served. [image above from Gordon Ramsey's 'Cooking with Friends', after the jump]

What sets the photography apart in these books? I can tell you what I like, starting first and foremost with the subject, which fills the frame– not a narrow depth of field (where one particular element closest to the camera is in sharp focus and the rest of the image is quite out of focus). I also like images which go beyond the ordinary or the expected. If the idea is to portray the ‘wholesome’ aspect of fresh eggs, instead of a basket of eggs with chicken feathers on them, an image that shows a picture of a grandfather and his grandchild rinsing off eggs before using them to make a birthday cake makes a greater impression on me. Finally, I like to feel like I am there in the scene– so images where the photographer has gotten into the action and shoots from a ‘participatory’ point of view makes a much greater impact.

CLICK HERE for the full cookbook reviews (and a list of great food photographers to check out!) after the jump!

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This week’s books go along with the great recipe from Emma and Sara for an Eggplant Torta over on the In the Kitchen With column. As soon as I saw the images of the recipe, I thought “Italian”. There are a lot of Italian books out there. Some “authentic”, some “inspired by” which in the end aren’t any more “Italian” than what my grandmother from Alabama used to make for us. So I have chosen an assortment of books this week that fall into the “Italian etc.” category. If you’re wondering, personally, I think the best Italian cookbooks on the market are produced by Slow Food Editori (the publishing arm of Slow Food Italy). They cover most of the Italian regions (one per region, with a few exceptions) and there are a few monothematic ones: Fish, Vegetables, Desserts, Soups, and Recipes from the Osterie featured throughout the regional books. Accompanying the recipes are brief descriptions, in many cases, of the origin and transformations of ingredients, socio-cultural notes, regional variations, or the history of the recipe. In short, the books present a snapshot of food and its development in Italy (unfortunately there are no photos). If you happen through Italy, stop in any Feltrinelli bookstore and pick up one or two or more. Even if you don’t speak Italian, you can fumble through them just fine! People who love food always find a way to explore new and great dishes.

In celebration of the autumn season, we have included a bonus recipe today for Chocolate Hazelnut Cake (torta di gianduia) at the end of this post, an Italian dessert probably from the Piedmont region where amazing hazelnuts are grown, and gianduia was ‘invented’. If you have a favorite Italian recipe book, please share yours below! -Kristina

CLICK HERE for the cake recipe and kristina’s cookbook reviews after the jump!

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Many of you asked for more vegetarian recipes in the launch of this cookbook column but you also asked for cookbooks for special diets each week. So today we’ll be focusing on vegetarian/vegan friendly cookbooks and including a special vegan cornbread recipe at the end of the post! Also, if you’d like to try different crepe recipes (in addition to today’s crepe recipe), sweet or savory, Lou Seibert Pappas has an excellent book called Crepes (Chronicle Books) which is perfect! -Kristina

CLICK HERE for the cookbook reviews and a vegan recipe after the jump!

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Whether you like sweet scones like the ones Chris Chun offered up for us a few weeks ago or the savory ones from this week, there’s nothing like having something great to go with them. Amy Azzarito suggests fried chicken with this week’s savory scones and Damon Lee Fowler’s Fried Chicken: The World’s Best Recipes (Broadway Books) is a great resource if you’re looking to head in that direction. But, if you don’t have $210 to buy that out-of-print first edition (Glad I got my copy at cover price 11 years ago!), have a look at this week’s books which can help you make something to go on your scones, or with them.

CLICK HERE for Kristina’s cookbook reviews after the jump!

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