Review: One Bake,Two Ways, Ruby Bhogal, Interlink Publishing Group
One Bake, Two Ways is an intriguing cookbook featuring Great British Baking Show finalist Ruby Bhogal’s flexible approach to baking. Every recipe is presented in two versions—a traditional version and a plant-based alternative version. It is delightful to page though this cookbook! The cake, bread, doughnut, cookie, pie, and tart recipes are all illustrated with gorgeous color photographs. In addition to the general recipe section, various sections are dedicated to sauce, curd, coulis, compote, jam, and icing recipes.
First, a warning! If you don’t have vanilla bean paste or self-rising flour stocked in your pantry, you must order them before attempting to bake any of these recipes. Vanilla bean paste and self-rising flour usage is ubiquitous throughout this cookbook.
Because I am a self-professed lazy baker, I chose the Shortest Shortbread You’ll Ever Eat recipe (page 192) to start off because it utilized ingredients I had on hand. It was also simple to make. Bhogal granted permission for bakers to “tweak and make it our own” along with tips on the best tweaks (citrus zests or fresh herbs), and tweaks to avoid (using liquids or dried ingredients).
I admire Bhogal’s flexibility. Regarding the Sticky Jamaican Ginger Cake with Butterscotch Sauce and Orange Cream recipe (page 32) she advises bakers, “If a stacked cake is too much of a task, go ahead and convert this into a sheet cake.” She accompanied that suggestion with tweaking tips and timing advice.
In her introduction to the Banana and Pecan Tarte Tatin with Cinnamon and Rum Ice Cream, Bhogal confessed, “ This is my go-to recipe when short on time, and when times are super tight, I scrap making the base from scratch and buy a package of pre-made puff pastry from the store, after all, if it’s good enough for Mary Berry, it’s good enough for us.” For that same recipe, I took Bhogal’s flexibility a step further. I used her recipes for the caramel and the tart filling but purchased the rum ice cream instead of making it.
On page 54, I discovered a recipe for a Spiced Carrot Cake with Orange Cream Frosting. Since I was feeling too lazy to bake a carrot cake from scratch, I baked a carrot cake using Dunkin Hines’ carrot cake mix, since it was selected as the best carrot cake box mix by a professional baker. Then, I frosted it with Bhogal’s delicious Orange Cream Cheese Frosting. Yum!
One of the recipes I’d love to try in the future is the Banana, Chocolate, and Butterscotch Sheet Cake with Whipped Coconut Cream and Ginger Crumbs. (page 60). The recipe is relatively simple to bake using common pantry ingredients. It serves 20. I likely would not serve the cake to 20 people so I plan on halving the recipe to serve 10.
One Bake, Two Ways is a cookbook I will return to again and again, if only to access a tasty sauce or icing recipe to use on a cake box mix. I love the flexibility of this cookbook and how I can easily adapt many of the recipes to serve my needs. If one is seeking a cookbook brimming with both traditional and vegan baking recipes, One Bake, Two Ways is a great choice.
