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A good baking book can make you feel like you've stepped into the ultimate bakery, complete with rows of perfectly crisp cookies, trays of oversized, fruit-studded muffins, just-frosted layer cakes, and the smell of fresh bread hot out of the oven.

Barricelli, owner of the SoNo Baking Company & Café in South Norwalk, Conn., a third-generation baker and host of PBS's Everyday Baking from Everyday Food, successfully transports readers into the workings of his popular bakery. The former Martha Stewart employee presents an “artisanal philosophy,” emphasizing the best ingredients, techniques. and equipment to yield the best results.

Categorized by type of baked good—Cookies, Brownies, and Bars, Pies and Tarts; Cobblers, Crisps, and Buckles, and Savories: Tarts, Quiches, Pies, and Bites, etc.—the 125 recipes include classics like strawberry shortcake, apple pie, white bread. There are also fun takes on classics like individual Boston cream pies as well as such innovations as tomato cobbler.

Numbered steps, informational headnotes, technique tips, along with full-page color photographs and a clean design make this a terrific gift title.