Potlikker: sugarbaby

About two years ago I loved reading about a woman's escape from the entertainment industry into the world of pastry and baking. Well, Gesine Bullock-Prado is back with another book, but this time it's a cookbook. Sugarbaby: Confections, Candies, Cakes, & Other Delicious Recipes for Cooking with Sugar. Just a glimpse of its book jacket made me want to lick its cover. And, most sweets do not tempt me the slightest. Oh, and chocolate? Pish. I care nothing for it.

I love this book on so many levels. Let me count the ways. First, from a design standpoint, it rocks. It's not your typical cookbook size. It is 9.1 X 9.1 inches. At least four or five fonts pop from its cover. The colors inside are pastel shades that remind me of Smarties, you know, the sour candies? Bullock-Prado's iconic owl's appear in its pages. And the photographs are Tina Rupp's.

If you don't read Deutsch, then you won't get the dedication.

Consider this book a primer on cooking and baking sugar. The contents are arranged by sugar's stages as it cooks: dissolve to thread; soft-ball, firm-ball, hard-ball, soft-crack, soft-crack, hard-crack, etc. The perfection of this method is that Bullock-Prado primes readers/cooks for their entree into cooking with sugar. If you work through the recipes in the book as they are arranged, then by the time you finish, you will know your way around sugar, for sure.

So that's what the first part of the book does, set you up for working with sugar. And the author introduces you to the history of sugar and its production. She covers the type of equipment you need to make the goodies in the book:

candy thermometer
heavy-duty pan
wooden spoon
a stand mixer
bench scrapers
sugar gloves
marble slab
scale

Then the next part of the book helps you put all those mad sugar skillz together and create desserts that will impress everyone you serve them to. Bullock-Prado is straight with you from the start: This is not a quick and dirty guide to cooking with sugar because there is no such thing.

If you want to become a sugar expert, you must put in the effort and the time it takes to make rock candy, candy corn, fudge, a caramel or a marshmallow.

Another tip, or philosophy Bullock-Prado shares--that I completely agree with--is this: Packaging is important. She recommends sussing out resources for your products, especially if you plan to give them as gifts or, eventually sell them. Nashville Wraps, U.S. Box, Qualita Paper, NovaCart, and Fancy Flours are all good sources and she names others as well in that section of the book if you require more personalization.

Her Nola Praline Custard Bread Pudding includes four earlier recipes: creme anglaise, vanilla pastry cream, Italian meringue, and Nola pralines. And it appeals to me a great deal given my love of bread pudding. This is undoubtedly the recipe I'll try, although the slew of brittle and toffees tempt me greatly, as do the best ginger cookies ever.

With Mother's Day firmly behind us and no real gift-giving holiday ahead, I say, this book is perfect for one of those no-gift-needed occasions. Just give the book to your sweetest friend, or buy it for yourself and use it as a workbook to notch up your kitchen skills, because frankly, I've never made fudge because, well, I don't like eating it, really. But working with candy thermometers creep me out just a bit. Gaining technical prowess in the kitchen is never a bad goal.