Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I lived in Ann Arbor for 6 years (up until 2011), so I spent quite a bit of time at the various Zingerman spots. There are a lot of desserts I've loved from Zingerman's, but the Hot Cocoa Cake is definitely my favorite. I've been dying to find out whether the recipe for Zingerman's Bakehouse's amazing Hot Cocoa Cake would be included in this cookbook and it is! More importantly, the recipe is easy to follow and produces a cake that tastes just like I remember. Warm and chocolatey, with fantastic chocolate chunks (use chunks, don't use chips) interspersed throughout the tender cake, it makes for a great treat with coffee, an easy crowd-pleasing chocolate cake (and it travels well), and also makes for the best breakfast slice ever. Likewise, the included recipe for challah and the very precise instructions for shaping it is worth the cost of this cookbook. The Bakehouse makes some of the best challah I've ever had, and I was able to reproduce it at home. Their recipe calls for a lot more egg (yolks) than most other challah recipes do, which along with the touch of oil helps make it so tender and golden in color. Since Amazon hasn't included the Table of Contents or Index in their preview, I'm attaching them to this review. It's true that the cookbook doesn't have that many recipes overall, but the expertise of the bakers and uniqueness of some of the recipes (like the Hungarian savory fried dough and the Transylvanian cinnamon swirl bread) more than makes up for it. Happily, this cookbook includes plenty of color photos (which the previous Zingerman's cookbook did not), while still managing to pack in a ton of information about the Bakehouse itself, how each recipe came into being, and ways you can tweak the recipe it make it your own. If you really enjoying baking desserts or breads, if you like learning more about the history of a place or a company, if you like hunting down recipes for unusual items, or if you are interested in what striving for perfection while running a thriving bakery looks like - Zingerman's Bakehouse is definitely a cookbook you should add to your library. If you aren't so interested in any of those things, but you're willing to buy a cookbook that will have the best recipe, one that's easy to follow and certain to succeed, for a few items you do want to make - Zingerman's Bakehouse is also worth adding to your cookbook library.