The Baker's Dozen Cookbook

More than ten years ago, cookbook author and teacher Marion Cunningham and professional baker Amy Pressman met occasionally to talk about the wonders and mysteries of baking. They chatted, exchanged ideas, offered suggestions, and ended up solving some of their difficult baking problems. Slowly a concept took shape. Suppose groups of like-minded bakers were to meet to exchange ideas and solve baking problems?

At the first meeting of The Baker's Dozen, forty people showed up with forty lemon meringue pies. The topic of the meeting was weeping and shrinking meringues and how to prevent them from happening. (The solution: Heat the egg whites and sugar while beating to avoid weeping; use more egg whites to solve the problem of shrinking.)

The word spread quickly, and The Baker's Dozen has grown to more than ten times the original number -- there are now more than four hundred members in the Bay Area. The groups continue to have two simple goals: Share what you know about baking and learn from one another.

Now you can share the collective experiences and favorite recipes of The Baker's Dozen in The Baker's Dozen Cookbook, with recipes selected and tested by some of the most respected and most accomplished bakers in the business.

Lindsey Shere, co-founder and pastry chef of Chez Panisse, shares the secrets of tarts. Authors Carol Field and Fran Gage and baker Peter Reinhart offer their collective wisdom on yeast breads and flatbreads. John Phillip Carroll teaches about easy quick breads, coffee cakes, and muffins. Renowned author and baker Flo Braker and her team share their years of cake-baking experience. Carolyn Weil and her group offer the ultimate advice and techniques for pies and piecrusts. Robert Morocco and Julia Cookenboo divulge their trade secrets of making foolproof cookies equal to those of any quality bakeshop.

The Baker's Dozen Cookbook goes far beyond recipes. You'll benefit from what these bakers learned on their field trips. You'll learn tricks such as using dental floss to cut neat slices of creamy cheesecake. You'll learn the differences between a pastry bag and a parchment cone; between a pâte brisée, a "broken dough," and a pâte sablée, a "sandy dough"; between butter and shortening in determining the flakiness of a crust; and so much more.

So whether you simply want to become a better baker yourself or to form a Baker's Dozen group with others, all you need is The Baker's Dozen Cookbook. It puts four hundred of America's best bakers and everything they know right by your side.

For baking tips, recipes, and information on starting your own Baker's Dozen, visit www.bakersdozen.org

Flo Braker, author of the award-winning Sweet Miniatures: The Art of Making Bite-Size Desserts (Chronicle Books, 2000) and The Simple Art of Perfect Baking, has been teaching baking techniques and her sweet miniatures across the country for more than twenty-five years. The Baker Columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle since 1989, Flo lives in Palo Alto, CA.

John Phillip Carroll has written numerous cookbooks, including California the Beautiful Cookbook and four books in the Williams-Sonoma Kitchen Library series. His most recent work, The Mayo Clinic Williams-Sonoma Cookbook, won the IACP Julia Child Award in the Health & Special Diet category, as well as the award for Best Health Book at The World Cookbook Awards in Versailles.

Julia B. Cookenboo previously served as the Pastry Chef at Oliveto restaurant in Oakland, CA and at Zuni Café ©n San Francisco. Julie lives in Richmond, CA.

Marion Cunningham was born in Southern California and now lives in Walnut Creek. She was responsible for the complete version of The Fannie Farmer Cookbook and is the author of The Fannie Farmer Baking Book, The Breakfast Book, The Supper Book, Cooking with Children and Learning to Cook with Marion Cunningham. She travels throughout the country giving cooking demonstrations, has contributed articles to Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, and Gourmet magazines, and writes a column for the San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times. Marion is a founding member of The Bakers Dozen and lives in Walnut Creek, CA.

Carol Field, writer and journalist, is the author of five award-winning books about Italy and its food, all of which feature bread and baking including In NonnaÂ’s Kitchen: Recipes and Traditions from ItalyÂ’s Grandmothers, Focaccia: Simple Breads from the Italian Oven, Italy in Small Bites, Celebrating Italy, and The Italian Baker. Her latest work is Mangoes and Quince, a novel with recipes. Carol lives in San Francisco, CA.

Fran Gage owned the well-respected Fran Gage Pâtisserie Fran硩se in San Francisco. She closed the bakery following a fire in 1995 and is now teaching and writing, with articles published in national magazines. Her first book, Bread and Chocolate, My Food Life In and Around San Francisco (Sasquatch Books, 1999) is a collection of stories about food with recipes to match. Fran lives in San Francisco, CA.

David Lebovitz is the author of the best-selling Room for Dessert, which the New York Times called “brilliantly appealing (with) recipes so good it becomes clear what a master baker he is.” Named one of the “Top Five Pastry Chefs in the Bay Area” by the San Francisco Chronicle, David teaches cooking nationwide and writes for major food publications. He trained at Chez Panisse restaurant. David lives in San Francisco, CA.

Alice Medrich is the only two-time James Beard Cookbook of the Year Award winner, for Chocolate: Extraordinary Chocolate Desserts and Chocolate and the Art of Low-Fat Desserts, both Warner Books. Her forthcoming book, A Year in Chocolate will be published this Fall. Alice appeared in “Baking at Julia’s” on PBS and contributed to the New Joy of Cooking. Alice lives in Berkeley, CA.

Robert Morocco admits to being a “cookieholic” for as long as he can remember. He founded Délices Cakes in California, which became known throughout the San Francisco Bay Area for elegant cakes, especially wedding cakes and, of course, cookies. Robert lives in Walnut Creek, CA.

Peter Reinhart is the founder of the award-winning Brother JuniperÂ’s Bakery in Santa Rosa, California. One of his cookbooks, Wild Yeast Country Bread, was the 1998 recipient of the James Beard Award in the Best Baking and Desserts category. He also wrote and edited the bread chapter for the revised Joy of Cooking. For five years prior to teaching at Johnson and Wales, Peter was a full-time instructor at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco. Peter lives in Santa Rosa, CA.

Lindsey Remolif Shere grew up on a family fruit and dairy farm in northern California, studied French language and history at Berkeley, and in 1971 joined Alice Waters to open the restaurant Chez Panisse, where she continued as Pastry Chef until her retirement in 1998. Her book Chez Panisse Desserts was published in 1985 and is still in print. She was named Pastry Chef of the Year by the James Beard Foundation in 1993. Lindsey lives in Healdsburg, CA.

Kathleen Stewart began what was to become a long and fruitful relationship with the Chez Panisse restaurant in 1975. In 1987 she and the pastry chef from Chez Panisse, Lindsey Shere, opened the Downtown Bakery & Creamery in Healdsburg, California. With her partners retired, Kathleen continues to run the bakery as well as writing articles for food publications nationwide.

Carolyn B. Weil is a founding member of The Bakers Dozen and an accomplished baker with more than 20 years of professional experience. She was the first pastry chef for Jeremiah Tower at Stars in San Francisco and then owned a bakery in Berkeley for ten years. Under her guidance, the bakery received local and national acclaim from Bon Appetit, Gourmet, and the San Francisco Chronicle. Carolyn writes about baking for The Washington Post and Fine Cooking. Carolyn lives in Berkeley, CA.