More Than Cake: 100 Baking Recipes Built for Pleasure and Community - Hardcover

by Natasha Pickowicz (Author)

The sumptuous debut cookbook from celebrated baker, activist, and pastry "it girl" Natasha Pickowicz * Named a Best New Cookbook of Spring 2023 by Food & Wine, Eater, and more * A James Beard Award Nominee

Natasha Pickowicz is a creative force in the world of baking. Her pastries are uniquely delicious and surprising. She's picked up three James Beard Award nominations for her time as a professional pastry chef. Her buzzy bake sales for Planned Parenthood and other nonprofits have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now she shares her recipes and baking know-how in a debut cookbook brimming with the energy, passion, joy, knowledge, and spirit of generosity that define her work.

The recipes are fresh and uncomplicated, drawing on the author's Chinese and Californian heritage. She pairs nectarine and miso in a tarte tatin and makes a layer cake with olive oil, mascarpone, and fennel. Black cardamom gets tucked into pecan sticky buns, and galettes go savory with kabocha squash. Brown butter is the secret to irresistible buckwheat chocolate chunk cookies.

And she's a born teacher. Of course pastry requires a real focus on detail and technique, but the author is here at every step with invaluable tips: underbeat meringue; boil your plum stones to extract even more plum flavor; look for "first-press" yuzu juice; for the flakiest pie dough, first freeze your butter, then use a grater to get perfect shreds.

More Than Cake means baking to bring people together. It calls on you to prioritize pleasure. As the author writes, "Dessert is beyond simple calories and nutrition. . . . It spreads delight in a way that no other kind of dish can. This is something I think people really need--it's not optional." It's a philosophy to live by.

Author Biography

Natasha Pickowicz is a California born, New York City-based chef, a four-time James Beard Foundation Award finalist, and the author of More Than Cake, which was named a New York Times Best Cookbook of 2023 as well as a James Beard Foundation finalist in the baking category.

Much of her work explores the relationship between baking and social justice, including ongoing collaborations with seminal New York City institutions like Lenox Hill Neighborhood House, God's Love We Deliver, the Brigid Alliance, and Planned Parenthood of Greater New York, for whom she produced a massive city-wide bake sale, raising more than $200,000 between 2017 and 2024.

Pickowicz's recipes and writing have been published in the New York Times, Vogue magazine, the Wall Street Journal, Bon Appetit, Saveur, Food & Wine, New York magazine, Cherry Bombe, and many other publications. Follow her on Instagram at @natashapickowicz.