The Family Baker: 150 Never-Let-You-Down Basic Recipes

Whether you learned to make desserts standing on your tiptoes at your mother's side, or you think "batter" is only a baseball term, join Susan G. Purdy in the kitchen as she whips up a delicious collection of goof-proof, innovative recipes guaranteed to bring out the kid in everyone. These easy creations conjure visions of flour-flecked faces and noses dotted with icing, and say loud and clear, "homemade from the heart."

There's everything from simple shortbread and dense, fudgy brownies to cherry pie with an easy-as-pie quick lattice topping (baked separately and slipped onto the pie before serving). The Family Baker brims with such mouth-watering, buttery baked goodies as Blueberry Buckle and Chocolate Romance Cake, in addition to no-bake ideas perfect for even the youngest aspiring cook.

Try Susan's Ice Cream Sand Castle. Simply fill a sand castle mold with store-bought ice cream, unmold when frozen, and sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar "sand." Her Peanut Butter-Honey "Clay Dough" feels like clay and can be modeled into a collection of creatures straight out of your child's imagination.

Accompanying her exceptionally detailed recipes, Susan provides decorating diagrams, trouble-shooting tips, and timesaving techniques that guarantee your muffins, cakes, pies, and cookies will be perfect every time. In charge of the school bake sale? There are merchandising suggestions that guarantee a money-making event. Need a conversation starter? How about make-your-own fortune cookies? And of course, there are plenty of ideas for birthday and anniversary parties and everyday celebrations.

So put on your apron, get out the flour, call in the kids, and start baking with The Family Baker by Susan G. Purdy.

Susan G. Purdy, CCP, bakes for her family at home in Litchfield County, Connecticut. Purdy's Have Your Cake and Eat It, Too earned the IACP/ Julia Child Cookbook Award and Let Them Eat Cake was nominated for a 1998 James Beard Award. Purdy teaches baking at cooking schools across the country and in France, and she writes about des-serts for many national magazines.