If you are tired of instant living, if you want to know the deep pleasure of creating in your kitchen, if you want to enjoy and serve the best, this is the baking book for you... (an excerpt from the dust jacket)

{HISTORY}

One of the most creative cooks of the 20th century, Paula Peck (1927-1972) started out experimenting in the kitchen thanks to her husband's love of international cuisine.  As a young bride, she was inexperienced to start but a newfound love of cooking eventually led to her taking a cooking class with James Beard, who took note of her unique style and willingness to buck tradition to make new and innovative culinary creations. 

Taking little bits and pieces from other cuisines, from other places and adapting them in ways that were unique and interesting, Paula worked with food from the foundation up, building a recipe like an artist builds up a scene in a painting. Taking into account, color, subject matter, texture, time, origin, flavor, and the relationship between one ingredient to another, her food was dotted with elements of surprise and flourish. And her recipes were full of experience. They were made up of years of tested and tried cooking adventures that never quite worked out. Until that one magical day when all her knowledge, all her sought-after advice, and all her hard-won skill in the technique department finally produced the perfect result. 

In 1961, Paula published The Art of Fine Baking, a cookbook determined to return the kitchen to that familiar, nostalgic room that produced homemade treat after homemade treat, all comprised of real ingredients and real-time spent preparing. The cookbook debuted in a time when instant cake mixes, prepackaged frostings and premade desserts were on the excitement in the lives of busy home cooks.  

As Paula explains, baking can be terrifying to some home cooks. It's precise, it's temperamental and it doesn't always work out. It took Paula herself, many years of testing each recipe here in her baking book, in order to finally figure out the easiest, most reliable way to share a wealth of recipes deemed successful enough to woo any skeptical cook Paula understood. She was one herself in the beginning. A complete novice not knowing the difference between puff pastry and pate brise or how to load a pastry bag or even how to use an oven, Paula came to cooking with no education except a desire to make something good for her husband and her kids and herself. Little did she know that her curiosity and her willingness to try and try again would eventually lead her to become one of the most dynamic and innovative cooks of the 20th century. 

Tragically, Paula died at the age of 45 just as her culinary star was rising. Lucky for us her recipes are still here to inspire decades of culinary bliss. 

In The Art of Fine Baking, Paula walks readers through every step of the baking process including setup, equipment, prep work and the sharing of dozens of recipes finally perfected and fine-tuned in her kitchen over years if not decades. Breads, cookies, cakes, rolls, pastries and tarts are the stars of the show here from simple to gourmet. All the recipes were made using techniques learned by a variety of professional and non-professional cooks that Paula intially sought out for guidance, before tackling them herself. Experience begets experience, and in this case flaky, buttery, homemade croissants rivaling that of Paris too. 

{SPECIAL FEATURES} 

• 1961 Book Club Edition
• 320 pages
• Includes original dust jacket
• Interesting recipes include Mediterranean Pie, Pizza Pennies, Short Hors D'Oeuvre Pastry, Orange Honey Twists, Scandinavian Christmas Cookies, Blueberry Tart, Cuban Bread, Italian Pepper Twist, Royal Egg Squares, Butter Cream Pufflets, Sacristans, German Sponge Tart, Lady Locks, Berlin Sticks, Melting Tea Cake, Ginger Cake, Basic Pound Cake, Simnel Cake, Savarin Dough, Creamy Chocolate Glaze, Chocolate Broyge, Golden Velvet Cake, Whole Wheat Bread, Brioche, Croissants, Quock Blender Butter Cream, Monettes, Heavenly Chocolate Cubes and Punch Pyramids
  

{CONDITION}

In lovely vintage condition. The dust jacket bears some chippy spots along the top and bottom edge but is fully intact. The interior and coverboards are clean and bright and free of cooking spots, stains, and markings. 

{SIZE}

Measures 9.5" inches (length) x 6.25" inches (width) x 1.5" inches (thickness) and weighs 1.8 lbs

{FOR THE LOVE OF PAULA}

We love Paula's recipes so much that we featured her take on a homemade breakfast-style pizza over the blog. Find it here, along with more information on Paula and her remarkable career.