This small cookbook is a wonderful resource for a baker of any level of experience. The introduction includes notes on following a recipe, measuring ingredients, and information on common ingredients. Following are chapters on breakfast breads, coffeecakes, tea breads, and kuchens.

The recipes included are: (chapter 1) spicy upside-down sausage corn bread, whole-wheat date-and-nut bread, applesauce-oatmeal raisin cake, whole-wheat carrot-apple honey cake, very-low-fat applesauce brown-sugar bread, Lawsons' prune oat-bran bread, breakfast fruit-and-nut bread, Milo O'Sullivan's currant-nutmeg soda bread, (chapter 2) pecan streusel coffeecake, nutmeg plum cobbler cake, simple sour-cream spice cake, lots-of-blueberries coffeecake, cinnamon-raisin coffeecake, oatmeal streusel coffeecake, chocolate-marbled sour-cream cake with cinnamon-almond topping, sour-cherry almond crunch cake, spicy prune cake, rhubarb upside-down cake, (chapter 3) intense chocolate tea bread (a personal favorite), orange sour-cream loaf, dried pear anise and walnut tea bread, molasses ginger cake, Gretchen's cranberry-apple cake, sweet marsala-rosemary corn meal cake, chocolate-orange crumb cake, Newmarket cake, armagnac prune and walnut tea bread, brandied currant tea bread, sunflower-seed brown-rice tea bread, (chapter 4) blueberry-raspberry kuchen, plum-walnut kuchen, Swedish apple-almond kuchen, pear-almond kuchen, sour-cherry-almond kuchen, vanilla pear custard kuchen, lemon apple kuchen, harvest tart, and peaches-and-cream kuchen. (Is that a great list or what?)

This is a great book. Its recipes are short and easy to follow, and the products made are simply heavenly. If you are interested in these sorts of recipes, then I strongly recommend that you get this book!

This book is great for all ages. It is funny and colorful. It is the best out of all his books, it is defently worth buying!!!!!!! Kim grover

Hi, My name is Dolores McCann and I made all but 2 of the cakes shown in TRADITIONS. I may be prjudice, but I think the cakes featured here are traditional favorites of our brides today. Though this book is out of print, several copies are still available through Bakery Craft. Come by my web site and see more cake decorating! http://w3.one.net/~proicer/index.html Dolores McCann (proicer@one.net)

This is easily the best home baking book I have used. The only complaint is that she uses salted margarine but she does add that you should add a pinch of salt if you must use unsalted butter. Oleo is the traditional fat. The recipes are clear and easy. She uses self-rising flour in some recipes but also tells how to make your own. A few are clunkers but there are some real gems here: full of freckles pound cake, meltaway blueberry coffeecake, and devil's food cake are just a few great examples. BUY THIS BOOK!

i was truly enchanted by this cookbook/memoir. while i have not attempted the recipes, her writing is so engaging that you almost feel as if you are in that bustling victorian kitchen that the author grew up in. if only we could be so fortunate.

As a Girl Scout leader, occasional room mother and all-the-time Mom, I'm always on the hunt for neat things to do with children, whose ages range from 7 - 13. Before picking up this book, I was restricted to the resources of family magazines and information shared, sometimes not in full, by other parents who'd had found an innovative thing to make, to do or to eat.

But that all changed with WACKY CAKES and WATER SNAKES. Jammed with timeless tricks and treats, this resource is one that I had to own. Because it's divided into the four seasons, I can easily plan for what's happening next week or project for something to do next year. I had so many pages dog-earred in the copy I had borrowed from the local library, that I simply had to order my very own -- always within reach -- copy.

Hat's off to the writer!

This book contains recipies from 1820's to 1920'

Charsley's treatment of wedding cakes is an interesting historical and social study. Feminists in particular will be intrigued and outraged by the symbolism that has gone into making the tradition of the wedding cake (particularly the cutting of the cake) what it is today. This book made me think about weddings in a whole new way.

A basic book simply listing phrases you can write on your cakes. But it is SO much more also. This book gave me the start for a wonderful cake that I wanted to create for my daughter's baby shower before my grandson was born. I used the phrase from this book: "Look out world, here I come" and HOW very true this statement has been! Christopher is now 16 and a real whiz at school, computers and in soccer. This book truly led me to the perfect theme. The cake consisted of a 'world' (half of the ball cake pan) a rainbow (horsehoe cake pan)(with'look out world, here I come' over to an 8" blue round cake on pillars with an 'angel' made of chocolate and some color-flo 'clouds.' There are truly some great basics here. Dolores at http://w3.one.net/~proicer/index.html

Nancy Coffelt's newest book, What's Cookin', combines subtle rhyme and outstanding illustrations to make a tasty read-outloud for moms and dads and a fun project for the newest readers and tiniest chefs. Coffelt combines her natural understanding of children's learning styles with some of the best and most skillful drawings found in children's literature. The book is age appropriate and is an easy way to help new parents introduce their child to the kitchen, cooking and lots of surprises.