I Love Desserts: United Cakes of America—Recipes Celebrating Every State

the appetizer:

United Cakes of America: Recipes Celebrating Every State by Warren Brown, includes recipes like Cassata Cake (Ohio); Sweet Potato Cake (Louisiana); Mud Cake (Mississippi); and Italian Meringue.

United Cakes of America
Recipes Celebrating Every State

by Warren Brown

Click to Buy United Cakes of America

In his first cookbook, CakeLove, Warren Brown wowed us with his amazing recipes for the pound cakes, butter cakes, sponge cakes, cupcakes, frostings, fillings, and meringues he serves at CakeLove—his popular D.C. bakery. Now, six bakeries later, this lawyer-turned-baker is back with United Cakes of America: Recipes Celebrating Every State.

Loving cakes is a natural part of Brown's constitution. In order to form a more perfect union of flour, eggs, butter, and sugar, he's offering his unique take on classic dessert recipes from all fifty states, plus Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. Starting with Whoopie Pies for Maine, Brown tours the whole country, updating regional confections like King Cake (Louisiana), Lady Baltimore Cake (South Carolina), Mud Cake (Mississippi), and Key Lime Pie (Florida).

United Cakes of America includes official state desserts (Maryland's Smith Island Cake; Massachusetts's Boston Cream Pie) and unofficial favorites (New York-Style Cheesecake; St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake), as well as an ovenful of brand-new baked treats that Brown has created to honor specific states' agricultural bounty (Avocado Cupcakes for California and Huckleberry Cake for Idaho). Informative sidebars and fun facts add local color, and plenty of mix-and-match frosting and glaze ideas complete the book.

About the Author

Warren Brown has been featured on major media outlets such as The Oprah Winfrey Show, the Today show, and Fox News and profiled in People magazine, Forbes, Reader's Digest, Kiplinger's Personal Finance, and other publications. He starred in twenty-six episodes of Sugar Rush on the Food Network in 2006, and is the author of CakeLove: How to Bake Cakes from Scratch. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife.