[paulraphael@ear]

I have a couple of dessert cookbooks that I like very much--particularly Pierre Herme's Chocolate Desserts and Alice Medrich's Cocolat.

They both have excellent recipes and some guidelines on technique, but what's missing is the theory behind the recipes.

My favorite cookbooks are ones like James Peterson's, that teach you all about the ingredients and how they interract. The recipe is an illustration of these ideas. By the time you get to the recipe, you already know how to make a hundred variations on it.

I'm missing this kind of knowledge when it comes to baking. I don't want to be a slave to instructions. i want to know why the chocolate is being melted into liquid in this recipe and not that one; why the butter and sugar are creamed together, why this recipe wants the batter whipped for 5 minutes and that one for less than one.

Any great sources for this information?

[TheMurrmaid]

Alton Brown's I'm Just Here for More Food. It's the baking book I'd wanted all my life without knowing it.

Also invaluable is Harold McGhee's On Food and Cooking. You might enjoy Cookwise by Sherry O'Corihher. Anything from the Cook's Illustrated people (including/especially the magazine) will be of interest to you. I am a big fan of their books Baking Illustrated and The Dessert Bible. I also enjoy Jeffrey Steingarten's books. Not every article he writes offers insight into baking, but many do and they're a hoot and a half regardless.

[panini]

Joe Amendola has some good things in print for troubleshooting and chemistry.

[foodpump]

If you like James Peterson's stuff, then you know what to look for: Clear concise instructions, but most importantly the How's and Why's, what to do in this situation, what to do in that. The Teubner series has some good stuff too.

Treat the whole thing like a quest. Haunt the libraries, bookstores, used bookstores, junk shops, and garage sales. With books you can always thumb through before buying.