If Thanksgiving is the Super Bowl of holiday meals, then Thanksgiving dessert is the halftime show. The spectacle! The drama! The over-the-top costumes! (Or, at least lots and lots of whipped cream.) No matter how much you’ve consumed during the meal itself, as soon as the gooey pecan pies and pumpkin cheesecakes, glistening cranberry tarts, and bubbling apple crisps emerge from the oven, all eyes are transfixed on the dessert table.
To help you perfect your pie game before the big day, we’ve rounded up the very best, recently-published baking cookbooks. (As it turns out, 2020 was a banner year for pie-focused books.) For those who prefer cakes and cookies to pie, or would rather practice their hand at a loaf of ciabatta or some sky-high biscuits, we’ve included a few savory baking books as well. And for anyone who craves decadent desserts but avoids gluten or dairy, we’ve got you covered. Whatever your bake up, Thanksgiving is bound to be sweet.
- Best All-Around Baking Cookbook: Pastry Love, Joanne Chang
- Best All-Around Pie Cookbook: The Book on Pie, Erin McDowell
- Best Pie Fundamentals Cookbook: Pie Camp, Kate McDermott
- Best Pie Design Cookbook: Pieometry, Lauren Ko
- Best All-Around Cake Cookbook: New Way To Cake, Benjamina Ebuehi
- Best Casual Cake Cookbook: Snacking Cakes, Yossy Arefi
- Best Bread Cookbook: Bien Cuit Bread, Zachary Golper and Peter Kaminsky
- Best Beginner Baking Cookbook: Beginner’s Baking Bible, Heather Perine
- Best Baking Cookbook To Impress Your Friends: Dessert Person, Claire Saffitz
- Best Southern Baking Cookbook: The Good Book of Southern Baking, Kelly Fields and Kate Heddings
- Best Wholesome Baking Cookbook: Black Girl Baking, Jerrelle Guy
Best All-Around Baking Cookbook
Pastry Love, Joanne Chang
James Beard award-winning baker Joanne Chang is best known for Flour, her critically acclaimed bakery in Boston. But home bakers have also gotten to know (and love) her, thanks to her book Pastry Love. The book’s 125 recipes cover everything from Flour’s famous sticky buns to funfetti angel food cake, pumpkin-pecan bread pudding, and pear tarte tartin. Along the way, Chang shares personal stories and a virtual “master class” in pastry essentials. This book belongs on the shelves of novice and experienced bakers alike.
Best All-Around Pie Cookbook
The Book on Pie, Erin McDowell
Just in time for peak pie season, celebrated food writer Erin McDowell offers this comprehensive treatise on pie baking. From basics like making extra-flaky crusts to advanced tips on styling and decorating, plus lots of wonderful recipes for sweet and savory pies, she covers it all. McDowell takes a mix-and-match approach to pie making, offering a wide array of doughs and fillings for home bakers to customize into their perfect pie. Pumpkin spice dough with eggnog filling? Yep. Key lime filling inside a brown butter cookie crust? Absolutely.
Best Pie Fundamentals Cookbook
Pie Camp, Kate McDermott
Anyone who has ever felt too intimidated to try their hand at pie baking would do well to pick up this book. As a longtime cooking and baking instructor, McDermott’s goal is to set up home bakers for success. This book follows suit by focusing on fundamentals like mastering a fluted or braided pie edge, or creating a gorgeous lattice crust. With recipes for ginger-pear pies, honey hazelnut fig crostatas and buttery rhubarb crisps, baking an impressive dessert will soon be easy as ever.
Best Baking and Design Cookbook
Pieometry, Lauren Ko
Bakers who care as much about how their baked goods look as how they taste will love Lauren Ko’s visually-stunning cookbook. Ko runs the popular site LokoKitchen, which features her other-worldly pies—technicolor, geometric creations that you have to see to believe. With step-by-step instructions and photographs, her book guides bakers in making intricate patterns that will delight the eye and the tastebuds.
Best All-Around Cake Cookbook
New Way With Cake, Benjamina Ebuehi
A few years ago, Ebuehi burst onto the scenes (and into our hearts) on The Great British Bake Off. Her newest book offers 60 perfect cakes that showcase her unique approach to flavor-pairings. From plum and black pepper cake and cardamom tres leches, to apple cake with sage caramel, every single one is simple to make and a big delight to eat.
Best Casual Cake Cookbook
Snacking Cakes, Yossy Arefi
According to Yossy Arefi, who runs the popular blog Apt 2B Baking Co., there’s never a bad time for a great cake. Her newest cookbook features 50 recipes for laid back, easy-to-make cakes that need no special occasion to enjoy. From Pumpkin Olive Oil Cake with Maple Glaze to Milk Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Cake Arefi’s recipes are beautiful enough for celebrations, but just as good for an afternoon snack.
Best Bread Baking Cookbook
Bien Cuit Bread, Zachary Golper and Peter Kaminsky
The Brooklyn-based bakery Bien Cuit has gained a devoted following for chef Zachary Golper’s breads, pastries and other baked goods. In this book, he shares the secrets behind his signature mahogany-colored crusts and incredibly flavorful breads. Readers will benefit from Golper’s curiosity and perfectionism, gleaning technique and perspective as they bake sourdough buckwheat loaves, perfect ciabatta and Jewish rye.
Best Beginner Baking Cookbook
Beginner’s Baking Bible, Heather Perine
Absolute baking novices take note, this cookbook is for you. Perine’s book proves that the satisfaction of taking a tray of perfectly baked cookies or scones out of the oven is accessible to anyone and everyone. Her straightforward approach, sage advice (like how to tell when a cake is truly baked through but not overdone), and simple recipes for butterscotch blondies, peanut butter mousse pie and herb garlic dinner rolls will transform newbies into mavens.
Best Baking Cookbook To Impress Your Friends
Dessert Person, Claire Saffitz
Claire Saffitz rose to stardom as one of Bon Appetit’s beloved video personalities. But beyond her effortlessly cool persona—and tireless commitment to creating gourmet versions of nostalgic junk foods—Saffitz is a seriously talented pastry chef. In her debut cookbook she shares foundational baking knowledge and offers recipes (for rice pudding cake, speculoos babka, apple and concord grape crumble pie and more) that will convert even the self-proclaimed sweet tooth skeptic into a bonafide “dessert person.”
Best Southern Baking Cookbook
The Good Book of Southern Baking, Kelly Fields and Kate Heddings
If oversized, fluffy sweet potato biscuits, pumpkin cheesecake, or cornbread bread pudding, are on your Thanksgiving menu, The Good Book of Southern Baking has you covered. The book brings you into the kitchen of James Beard Award-winning chef and owner of New Orleans bakery Willa Jean, Kelly Fields. Her cobblers, galettes, tarts and cakes will teach you the fundamentals of Southern baking, while sharing twists and variations that bring tradition into the 21st century.
Best Wholesome Baking Cookbook
Black Girl Baking, Jerrelle Guy
Jerrelle Guy is best known for her popular food blog Chocolate for Basil, which takes a health-conscious (but still wildly delicious) approach to baking. Her debut cookbook is deeply personal and the recipes—for orange peel pound cake, blueberry drop biscuits, and sea salt butterscotch tart—tell the story of Guy’s childhood and how she came into her power as a confident black woman and food professional. Bakers looking for recipes that employ wholesome ingredients like almond flour, coconut oil and nut milks, offer gluten free and egg free substitutions and limit refined sugars will delight at every page.
