The Dahlia Bakery Cookbook

I’m looking through the brand new The Dahlia Bakery Cookbook: Sweetness in Seattle that I picked up at the release party earlier this afternoon.  It’s a great book –  heavy paper, gorgeous photos, nice layout and more than 350 pages of recipes, tips, information and resources.  At the front of the book is a two page spread featuring photos of the entire Dahlia Bakery team.  It’s big!  Since they supply all the baked goods for the entire line of Tom Douglas restaurants, it would have to be a big team.

There are several chapters you’d expect like cookies, pies, tarts and cakes.  And some you might not expect like english muffins, tomato soup and grilled cheese, and jams and jellies.  And it looks like they’ve included at least some of their signature recipes – for instance the Triple Coconut Cream Pie recipe is included, as are the Dahlia Donuts.  My only disappointment is there are very few bread recipes.  I was really hoping for the pecan flax whole wheat recipe.  But there’s so much in this book, I probably won’t really miss it.

Although I haven’t made anything from the book – yet – other cookbooks from Tom Douglas have always had recipes that work like you expect them to.  I’m sure this is due to the hard work of Tom’s co-author Shelly Lance who does most of the testing and tasting for the cookbooks, among other things.

This would make a great Christmas gift for family or friends who enjoy baking.  At first glance it also looks like it would be a good gift for those learning to bake.  In addition to detailed instructions I’ve seen several sidebars with additional information.

The official release date is tomorrow.  You can get the cookbook here.