A review of the cookbook Stacie Bakes by Stacie Stewart. It’s an eclectic mix of recipes with vintage, classics and modern bakes both from Britain and abroad. They’re all given a Stacie twist.
We don’t have a television, so I’d not heard of Stacie Stewart until I was sent her book to review. On finding out she reached the Masterchef finals in 2010 and is now on ITVs food. Glorious.food, I wasn’t much the wiser.
Well, along with this august claim to fame, she also has a bakery supplying cakes and bakes to shops and events around the country. Ahh, now I get it, she’s a baker. My interest has awakened.
Stacie Bakes
Stacie bakes is a 208 page hardback book with a whopping hundred recipes. The chapters are arranged by the calendar. The first is, New Year, New Baking Rules and the last is Christmas Baking & Gifts.
I found some of the recipes placed a little arbitrarily: Turkish delight with pistachios sounds delightful, but I’m not sure I’d have put it in the chapter for Mother’s Day and Vintage Tea.
Baking Tips
There’s an introductory section on baking tips and equipment. I think this is particularly useful for the novice cook and it’s rarely covered. Such essentials as: oven temperatures vary. I had no idea about this when I started baking and it’s caused no end of problems with both burnt and underdone bakes.
Toast nuts before you use them both for added flavour and for loosening skins. This is another of Stacy’s tips. Again, this is something I didn’t pick up for some while when I first started baking. You’ll find various other tips scattered throughout the book.
Stacie Bakes Recipes
The recipes look to be really interesting and I have bookmarked a fair few of them. Each one starts with a little introduction, which I found to be a nice touch. Both historical and personal factoids are included; I didn’t know that the northern classic, singin’ hinnies got their name from the whistling noise they made when cooking.
There are a few gluten free recipes and a couple of “healthy” bakes, but the majority are full-on lip smackingly indulgent. Peaches baked in sweet wine are served with amaretti studded ricotta. Beehive bars for breakfast sound a tad decadent to me with their copious amounts of sugar, butter and syrup, but I’ wouldn’t say no to them at any other time of the day.
Rhubarb Tarte Tatin makes for a very interesting twist on the classic and one I am keen to try. Elvis gets a clever tribute with blue suede choux. That is to say, choux pastry filled with peanut butter cream and topped with caramel and bananas.
I was particularly pleased to see that chocolate was well represented throughout the book; chocolate cake filled with salted caramel custard had me reaching for a bookmark immediately.
Stacie Bakes – The Verdict
I really don’t like the type face. It’s blocky and I found it a bit difficult to read. You can’t miss Stacie in the book with her vintage beehive hairstyle and heavy black eyelashes. In fact whilst the pictures are good, there seem to be far more of Stacie than the bakes she’s made. I would have preferred it the other way around.
All in all, however, I think Stacie Bakes is worthy of a precious place on my cookbook shelves.
Cheese and Leek Scones for Easter Tea
As well as adapting her recipe for honey madeleines, I made Stacie’s cheese and leek scones for Easter Tea. Other than substituting some of the flour for wholemeal, I pretty much stuck to the recipe.
They were the star of the show, knocking my simnel cake, choc cross buns and other fancy treats into the shade. I shall certainly be making them again. Both recipes were easy to follow and very importantly, worked.
Keep in Touch
Thanks for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you have Stacie Bakes or have made anything from it, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. Do share photos on social media too and use the hashtag #tinandthyme, so I can spot them.
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Choclette x
It’s good to hear the recipes are reliable and tasty. I’ll certainly keep my eye out for this book.
Interesting review, will defo take a look at this book when next in Waterstones
Good review and nice that you’ve cooked some recipes which worked.
Just checked back to see if my comment had posted, no!
I’ll have to check out Stacie’s books, after reading your review x
I have to say even though I have a television, I hadn’t heard of Stacie until recently. Sounds like there’s some interesting recipes in there even if there aren’t so many pictures!
I hadn’t heard of her either, but I will have to check out this book!
Looks like a book to look out for. With all your yummy sounding recipes in mind,I got a library book today- ‘How to Avoid a Soggy Bottom’ (from the great british bake off!) to do a bit of swatting up.
I’ve got a TV, but had never heard of her! It sounds an interesting collection of recipes – I’ll look forward to seeing the results of the recipes you try.
Hi sweetie, so pleased to read a review of this by someone I trust. I have to admit that her image puts me off a bit…the arch ’50s twist seems a bit OTT. I probably won’t buy it, but I will definitely look forward to your ‘takes’ on some of the recipes!
I have to say even though we have a TV I still didn’t know who she was so thanks for enlightening me! Sounds like it could be a good book, dare I add it to my already groaning shelves?!
Ah! That’s who she is! I overheard a couple of bakers having a whinge a couple of months ago about her profile and I didn’t know who they meant.
Interesting review Choclette, I have seen this book in the shops, but like you don’t watch TV so am not in the loop with what she’s done TV wise, so it’s great to read this!