Cookbook lovers read all different kinds of cookbooks. Some are favorites because they have basic everyday recipes that users return to again and again. Some are great for special occasions like Christmas while others are focused on one type of food such as cookies, or one method of cooking.

 

There are some cookbooks that are just wonderful to browse through.  They have the most gorgeous pictures that summon oohs and aahs.

Two new volumes at the library fit in that category. One focuses on the winter season while the other delights with 50 recipes for the most scrumptious cupcakes you have ever seen. “Robicelli’s - A Love Story, with Cupcakes” by Allison & Matt Robicelli is much more than just a cookbook.  The owners of the acclaimed wholesale bakery Robicelli’s in New York City bring their talents as pastry chefs to create cupcakes “for a more sophisticated palate with real ingredients, classic, rich French buttercreams, tender textures and balanced flavors.”

 

The cupcakes are certainly different from the Brooklyn Blackout (chocolate cake with chocolate custard buttercream, dipped in homemade fudge and rolled in chocolate cake crumbs) to Buffalo Chicken (fried chicken in carrot-celery root cake with blue cheese buttercream and buffalo sauce on top.)

 

There are recipes for Apple Maple Crisp, Tiramisu, Banana Cream Pie, Cinnamon Bun, Pecan French Toast, and Cherries Jubilee cupcakes.  With fifty recipes, “Robicelli’s” is a cupcake cookbook with a difference from recipes to ingredients to methods all accompanied by the love story of Allison and Matt.

 

“Wintersweet” by Tammy Donroe Inman takes a season that many feel can be limited because of the availability of ingredients and uses the inspiration to create some mouth-watering examples of winter baking that uses squashes, pumpkins, parsnips, apples, pears and citrus.  She pushes these ingredients to create everything from Tangelo Sorbet to Spicy Prune Cake with Penuche Frosting.  Chapters are divided by ingredients so that apple lovers can create Cast-Iron Apple Cake or Appalachian Whiskey Applesauce Cake or citrus fans can be inspired by Lemon Mousse, Grapefruit Bars or Mexican Lime Pie.

 

With recipes for flaky pies, crowd-pleasing cookies and cobblers, “Wintersweet” is a perfect book to warm up your kitchen and your heart in these arctic cold January days.