Cake Dance

I am a big fan of baking and a big fan of cakes. When I go to Rick's Dessert Diner - I don't share my slice of cake with anyone. I love cakes so much that when I was young, my mother used to come home to me baking up some sort of cake - coconut, chocolate marble, pineapple, vanilla. The typical picture she walked in on was me standing on a stool, covered in flour, every pan I could find out of the cupboard and the Betty Crocker cook book my mother was given when she first came to the United States opened to the baking section. To her credit, she never said anything but, "What are you making today?"

I still have that cook book. Every now and then I open it up and reread the sections on "Kitchen Know-How," which consists of how to plan ahead, organize your housework and combine jobs. My favorite piece of advice can be found in the paragraph on how to "refresh your spirits" by combing your hair, thinking pleasant thoughts and having a hobby. While things have changed quite a bit since the early 1960s, the recipes inside are timeless and always remind me of childhood.

Until Melissa Gray's All Cakes Considered, I had yet to find a cook book that inspired me with the same baking gusto as my mom's old Betty Crocker "New Picture" Cook Book. Annabelle Breakey's photographs of such confections as Brown Sugar Pound Cake, Lord and Lady Baltimore Cakes and Apricot Jam Cakes are enough to make you want to run to the store and stock up on baking powder, vanilla extract and confectioner's sugar. Moreover Melissa Gray's baking tips and techniques will make even the most anxious baker feel at home in their own kitchen.

If you have time, stop by the shop and flip through the cook book and see for yourself. I would bet that you will find yourself at home, fork in one hand, cake plate in the other and the aroma of sugar and vanilla in the air.