Order Baking 9-1-1

Culling the cream of the crop of this year's best cookbooks for holiday giving yielded a list heavy with from-scratch baking books, enough to build a library for aspiring home bakers.  (Baking 9-1-1 at end of text).

Start with the basic King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion: The All-Purpose Baking Cookbook (Countryman Press, $35), a modern classic free of promotion from the source of both high-quality basic and hard-to-find baking supplies. Or opt for Home Baking: The Artful Mix of Flour and Tradition Around the World, by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid (Artisan, $40), for more diverse choices with equally clear instructions.

Williams-Sonoma Essentials of Baking, by Cathy Burgett, Elinor Klivans and Lou Seibert Pappas (Oxmoor House, $34.95), is filled with mouthwatering photos and tempting recipes for bagels and baguettes, French pastries, and all-American pies.

Cookie lovers will find comfort in Great Cookies: Secrets to Sensational Sweets, by Carole Walter (Clarkson Potter, $35) and The Good Cookie, by Tish Boyle (Wiley, $34.95).

For bread bakers, there are two comprehensive works - the 30th-anniversary edition of Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads (Simon & Schuster, $35), with updates on new ingredients and baking tools, and The Bread Bible, by Rose Levy Beranbaum (Norton, $35), with a guide to ideal ingredient proportions.

On the sweet side, Spago pastry chef Sherry Yard shares The Secrets of Baking: Simple Techniques for Sophisticated Desserts (Houghton Mifflin, $35.95). And Judith Fertig explores the wide-ranging roots of All-American Desserts (Harvard Common Press, $18.95).

Conversely, some home cooks are personalizing packaged foods with fresh ingredients. Much hype has surrounded Food Network host Sandra Lee and her book Semi-Homemade Desserts (Miramax, $19.95), based on her series Semi-Homemade Cooking (a 70-30 mix of prepared and fresh foods).

But she is not alone. The titles say it all.

Half-Scratch Magic: 200 Ways to Pull Dinner Out of a Hat Using a Can of Soup or Other Tasty Shortcuts (Clarkson Potter, $17.95), by Linda West Eckhardt and Katherine West DeFoyd, includes the likes of creamed onions: Mix two 13-ounce cans cream of celery soup with two 16-ounce jars of onions (drained), and bake 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

Philadelphia author Andrew Schloss adds his creative touch in Almost From Scratch: 600 Recipes for the New Convenience Cuisine (Simon & Schuster, $25). Author Anne (The Cake Mix Doctor) Byrn extends her food franchise with The Dinner Doctor (Workman, $26.95), this time doctoring packaged foods into tasty home-style meals.

But for those who'd rather starve than open a can, Health magazine senior food editor Susie Quick serves up Quick Simple Food, a lushly illustrated collection of easy contemporary dishes (Warm Potato Salad With Olives and Dill; Ginger Chicken Satay With Grilled Mango) made only with unprocessed foods.

Bridging baking and fast fare, Peter Reinhart narrates American Pie: My Search for the Perfect Pizza (Ten Speed Press, $24.95). Raised on Mama's pizza in Bala Cynwyd, the author of the Brother Juniper bread-baking books explores pizza recipes and techniques in the United States and Italy.

For mainstream cooks, The Junior League at Home (Putnam, $29.95) has menus and more than 400 proven recipes from league members.

Scandinavian fare

Books by prominent chefs often focus on national and regional cuisines. In Aquavit and the New Scandinavian Cuisine (Houghton Mifflin, $45), New York chef Marcus Samuelsson redefines traditional Swedish and other Scandinavian fare, using new techniques and flavors such as sushi-style pickled herring and cured beef filet.

From Norway, Andreas Viestad's Kitchen of Light (Artisan, $35) is the companion to his PBS series, New Scandinavian Cooking.

On more familiar turf, Paula Wolfert sums up 30 years and six cookbooks devoted to Mediterranean cuisines in her latest, The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen (Wiley, $30).

Giuliano Bugialli's Food of Naples and Campania (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, $50) is both a cookbook and a culinary travelogue, luring readers into the markets and kitchens of the region and sharing recipes for specialties from Neapolitan pizzas to the delicate pastry sfogliatelle.

David Bouley, rated among the world's top chefs, brought a light touch and renewed cachet to Austrian fare at his restaurant Danube, in Manhattan. His East of Paris: The New Cuisines of Austria and the Danube (HarperCollins, $34.95) opens those recipes to home cooks.

Interest in Latin American and Hispanic foods puts The South American Table: The Flavor and Soul of Authentic Home Cooking From Patagonia to Rio de Janeiro, With 450 Recipes, by Maria Baez Kijac (Harvard Common Press, $32.95), on the cusp of a trend.

Daniel's Dish: Entertaining at Home With a Four-Star Chef, by Daniel Boulud (Filipacchi, $39.95), offers a small but varied selection of basics (sandwich buns) and updated classics (Waldorf Moderne), with none more intimidating than Casual Cassoulet, Caramelized Bay Scallops or Chocolate Crepes Suzette.

Mastering Simplicity: A Life in the Kitchen, by Christian Delouvrier with Jennifer Leuzzi (Wiley, $34.95), is filled with seasonal regional recipes. But it was the narrative thread of the former Lespinasse chef's career that held my attention cover to cover.

From Seattle and beyond

Those with a taste for Pacific Northwest seafood and casual, creative fare will relish Tom's Big Dinners: Big-Time Home Cooking for Family and Friends, by Tom Douglas (William Morrow, $32.50). The award-winning Seattle chef grills whole salmon, makes a multicourse Chinese meal, and serves temptations such as fried Jarlsberg cheese and sweet-pea risotto.

Many star chefs and food personalities focused on home-style cooking this year, sometimes going so basic that they produced almost non-cookbooks, such as Nigella Lawson's Forever Summer (Hyperion, $35).

Flavor, by Rocco DiSpirito (Hyperion, $35), is a surprise gem in the mix. It was hard to reconcile the tarnished star of NBC's reality show The Restaurant with accolades such as "America's most exciting young chef." But DiSpirito redeems himself in this informative book on cooking by taste. Color-coded ingredient lists help cooks recognize the balance of flavors - sweet, sour, salty and bitter - in appealing recipes.

Authors Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page tapped the knowledge and recipes of top chefs - Rick Bayless, Daniel Boulud, Alain Ducasse, Julie Sahni and Piero Selvaggio, among them - for lessons in 10 popular cuisines for The New American Chef: Cooking With the Best of Flavors and Techniques From Around the World (Wiley, $29.95).

Diverse dishes are also sampled in The Best American Recipes 2003-2004: The Year's Top Picks From Books, Magazines, Newspapers and the Internet, edited by Fran McCullough and Molly Stevens (Houghton Mifflin, $26), and in Food & Wine magazine's Best of the Best (Food & Wine, $29.95).

For mainstream tastes, The Food Network Kitchens Cookbook (Meredith, $29.95), is filled with appetizing recipes, sound techniques and useful tips.

From: http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/living/food/7462292.htm