Brown’s secrets are out

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BALTIMORE (Map, News) - You no longer have to guess what makes CakeLove’s moist cakes and rich buttercreams so irresistible.

In his first cookbook, Warren Brown, the founder of the sprawling CakeLove bakeries, writes the answers in mouth-watering detail.

To Brown, baking from scratch is both a science and an art. He proves that in 224 pages, where he divulges the ingredients, equipment, techniques and recipes for his pound, butter and foam cakes, frostings, glazes, fillings and meringues.

Why share your secrets?

A big part of why I want to share this is to empower people to jump into the kitchen and rediscover it. The kitchen is the most underutilized resource in this country. When it comes down to it, people should cook more. Anything you make at home will be healthier than what you eat from a restaurant.

People don’t really have a full appreciation of how damaging processed and artificial food are for them. And there’s a good amount of mystery around how to bake, or the science of baking. I’m trying to help remove that anxiety. I had to work through it myself because at one point I cooked but didn’t bake.

In your book you emphasize a scale is crucial. Why?

It’s much more accurate than other methods. It’s the one piece of equipment you really should get before taking step one. Without a scale, a lot of people have catastrophic problems that they can’t recover from, like when you add more flour than a recipe called for by scooping flour, leveling and then packing it in. We sift the flour into a bowl already set on a scale and take measurements that way.

How is your cookbook baker-friendly?

I approached writing the book by how it was going to be used in the kitchen. It’s going to be on a kitchen counter, so I said let’s have recipes on facing pages, no flipping. You can read it at arm’s length. There’s lots of pictures and visual clues, with fun language and words to describe techniques.

Most people I encounter miss the point because [a step] is insufficiently described. Most cookbooks say cream until light and fluffy. In this book, you can see the three stages of creaming — dancing, clumping and coating. A lot of people do the second stage but need to go past that.

jnovak@baltimoreexaminer.com

SEE HOW THIS STORY DEVELOPED

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» 68 days ago: Brown’s secrets are out «

75 days ago: Great Grapes brings good wine

75 days ago: Get face to face with farmers

82 days ago: $10 bottomless beers, red-hot wings a Noble pursuit

96 days ago: Soft-shell crabs break the mold

117 days ago: Raise a margarita

124 days ago: High-end sushi with a view

131 days ago: Bringing together Maryland’s finest beer, food for charity

131 days ago: Maryland’s green hot spots

131 days ago: Watertable first in local monthly food campaign