I don't typically develop feasts. My sweet recipes, such as my Hōjicha crème brûlée recipe, are typically small batch. I'm just one cat lady in a little apartment, friends scattered downtown and uptown and across the Hudson and in different boroughs so I can't possibly eat all of this sugar, cream, and butter by myself. Plus immediately after baked goods are removed from the oven, starch retrogradation (aka staling) begins so while you can freeze Bakery-Style Almond Rhubarb Sour Cream Muffins and warm them up, they just will not be as good as the day you baked them.
For the same reason, I don't often review cookbooks, but I just couldn't resist beginning to bake my way through Nicola Lamb's new cookbook, Sift: The Elements of Great Baking, even if I couldn't do something extreme like "I made all 154 recipes in Sift" that large media outlets with lots of money and plenty of eaters could do.
I've been a fan of Nicola Lamb's approach to pastry for the last three years. I subscribe to her superb Substack, "Kitchen Projects". If you're unsure about whether Sift is a cookbook you'd like, be sure to check out her Substack to get a feel for her voice, recipes, and approach.
🤓 About my approach to this review
- I worked part-time in a low-volume bakery cafe back of house for a year and consider myself an advanced baker. I understand ratios, analyze texture and crumb structure, think scientifically about technique, measure by weight, and troubleshoot failed bakes.
- I occasionally scaled recipes down. Lamb helpfully provided egg amounts in grams 🙏👼 making this easy and straightforward.
- I read each recipe thoroughly at least three times before making it.
- I made some recipes multiple times (like the focaccia) to test consistency or experiment with details.
- I always use a scale and weigh ingredients when I can.
- I have a gas oven that heats unevenly and I use an oven thermometer to get an accurate read on the temperature. An oven thermometer are an essential tool since the displayed temperature might not reflect the actual temperature.
- I tried to sample across difficulty levels, though I still have yet to attempt the uber-technical recipes such as the croissants, or the time-intensive recipes such as the banana pudding pie.
Jump to:
❤️ Things I Loved
⚖️ Volume AND Weight Measurements ❤️
Sift provided both volume AND weight measurements. 🙏🙇♀️
Many variables go into a bake, so it's important to measure by weight and minimize variables. I develop bakes by weight then convert it to volume for y'all, but weighing your ingredients will result in more consistent bakes.
We all measure flour differently. Some of us spoon the flour into the dry measuring cup and level it off. Some of us scoop the dry measuring cup directly into the flour. Some of us 😭 use a wet measuring cup to measure dry ingredients 😭. Each of those cups of flour is going to be a cup of flour technical, but the weights will be dramatically different.
I appreciated that Sift offers weight measurements first, volume second.
👨🏽🍳 About 40% of Sift was dedicated to food science, technique, and equipment
Almost half of the real-estate in Sift was dedicated to comprehensive, in-depth (but maybe not Harold McGee in-depth) food science exploration and explanation which I adored ❤️❤️❤️.
Ever come across a pie dough recipe that calls for vodka or another liquor? Sections like "All about Flour" taught me that gluten only forms in the presence of water, so by adding a high percentage alcohol like vodka, you're reducing the amount of liquid contributing to gluten development, resulting in a more tender crust!
You'll learn about how cold proofing and pre-ferments can help build complexity and flavor in a section dedicated to "How Things Rise."
You'll learn that eggs and flour are tougheners, and fat, sugar, and acids work to decrease or weaken gluten formation in the "Textures" section.
In "Technical Overview" you'll learn why water baths result in a gentler more even bake.
On her website, Nicola Lamb even has a collection of the resources she used to write Sift if you're interest in that kind of thing as much as I am. I live for this kind of information and if you do too Sift is a must-have for your cookbook shelf.
🍰 A Section Of Base Recipes and Extra Recipes
In Sift, Nicola Lamb the "Base Recipes" section includes recipes such as meringues, milk bread, rough puff pastry, sablé breton, and choux. The "Extra Recipes" section contains recipes such as "Compound Butters", "Pastry Cream", "Vanilla Créme Anglaise", and "Savoiardi Cookies".
These base recipes are used to build other recipes. For example, the banana pudding pie (which is on my to-make list!) is made up of a cacao case, Savoiardi cookies, caramel sauce, crème légère, and whipped cream.
Almost more importantly, you can take these base and extra recipes, riff on the flavors, the type of sweetener or starch used, the number of eggs or yolks, and so on to put different components together in creative ways that speak to your palate. Sift gives you access to the hows and whys of foundational elements, giving you the ability to make things that are uniquely your own.
⏲️ Recipes Are Organized by Time Commitment
The main recipe section in Sift is divided into "An Afternoon", "A Day", and "A Weekend" categories.
Each recipe includes detailed time breakdowns, and longer recipes specify which steps happen on what days. This gives you a clear overview of the actual time it takes to make a recipe. For example, Lamb's Rhubarb and Custard Crumb Cake ( from "A Day" section) is broken down like this:
- Day 1: 1-13 hours
- 30 mins: Make pastry cream & crumb
- 30 min: Prep & cook rhubarb
- 12 hrs: Allow rhubarb to chill overnight (optional)
- Day 2: 2 hrs 30 mins
- 30 mins: Make cake & assemble
- 1 hr: Bake
- 1 hr: Let cool
🧅 Are ingredients hard to find?
Living in NYC spoils me with access to specialty shops such as SOS Chefs and Kalustyan's, so I try to remember what was available in the two smaller Midwest and and Western Massachusetts towns I've lived in in the past.
On a scale from basic supermarket ingredients for a hotdish to esoteric specialty items (like yuzu kosho, verjus, and fresh shiso leaves called for in one of my favorite mocktail books), Sift falls comfortably in the middle. Lamb calls for ingredients like panela sugar, buckwheat flour, golden syrup, and barley malt syrup, but sometimes offers common substitutes (dark brown sugar, light corn syrup, etc.).
More importantly, this cookbook doesn't rely on hard-to-find ingredients for flavor--it focuses on technique. Fill a Victoria sponge with roasted strawberries. Poach your stone fruit. Did you know you can toast flour to change its taste?
This approach is where Lamb's creativity really shines--she gives you the hows and why so you can innovate with common ingredients.
📖 Recipes I Made
🍓 Roasted Strawberry Victoria Sponge ("An Afternoon")
I'd never roasted strawberries before and these were INSANE. They'd be perfect in ice cream--I now understand why upscale ice cream shops feature roasted strawberry. The roasting really concentrates and intensifies the strawberry flavor. I've been eating a lot of strawberries shortcakes with fresh strawberries so a roasted strawberry cake was a welcomed change.
As written in Sift, the whipped cream wasn't sweet enough for my tastes.
The Victoria sponge recipe called for a significant amount of baking powder. The cake rose beautifully, but I thought I could detect a slight baking powder taste even though I used Bob's Red Mill which does not contain aluminum, which can create bitterness. Could have been my imagination though.
Overall, it was a solid recipe with clear instructions. I made a half batch and also messed with it while it was baking a bit too much, causing it to collapse a bit in the middle.
🇫🇷 Brown Sugar Canelé ("A Day")
The brown sugar canelé recipe in Sift didn't specify this, but I strained both the warm vanilla milk and the final batter to ensure the custard base was as smooth as possible. Straining the milk probably was overkill, but I wanted to do my best. Because it didn't say I should blend it, I resisted the urge to throw everything in the blender.
This was my first time making canelé. I bought molds specifically for this recipe (not copper--I'm not made of money) because I can't resist new kitchen equipment. Canelé are notoriously finicky and have replaced macaron obsession for home bakers, or so I hear.
My first batch could have been darker, especially the ones with the pale crowns. Interestingly, the one canelé I unmolded early to check was the only one without the blond top, leading me to think I under-filled or overfilled the molds, or that there was some kind of air pocket in the base.
I cold-fermented the remaining batter another 24 hours and made a second batch, unmolding all of them mid-bake to check browning. Result? Dark crowns, no blond. I also baked them for longer to get a richer color.
Note: My molds were smaller than Lamb's--her recipe calls for 3 ounces per mold. If you're buying molds, get individual cups since you'll need to unmold during baking to check color.
One confusion: the recipe says to remove the batter and stir, then preheat molds for 30-40 minutes. Was I supposed to let the batter come to room temperature? Other recipes online didn't mention this, so I went straight from the fridge to oven, which likely created more custardy centers (visible in my photos).
Fantastic, easy-to-follow recipe. 10/10.
🥖 3-Day Focaccia ("A Weekend")
I typically use Samin Nosrat's focaccia recipe since I haven't developed my own (still entering the world of bread!).
I made this recipe at least 7 times trying to perfect it. I'd consider it moderate technical skill, and since I tested it extensively, I have more feedback than for simpler recipes like the Victoria sponge.
It took three attempts and some Googling to realize Lamb was describing coil turns, which I'd never done before. My earlier focaccia attempts came out more like sandwich bread in texture, which I learned happens when you're not gentle with your turns.
Important note: Lamb specifies that she uses instant dry yeast in Sift's welcome section, but I missed this important detail. For my first few attempts, I used active dry yeast (which requires dissolving in water and has a slower rise time). This explained why my dough was rising slowly despite summer heat and why I kept underproofing it, resulting in a gummy texture that was extremely oily instead of fluffy.
Some instructions could be clearer. In the folding section, Lamb doesn't explain waht to do if your dough isn't windowpaning. I assumed "keep folding" after consulting online baking communities.
Once I got it right, the focaccia was fluffy and beautiful. I prefer fluffy over cakey focaccia, and this delivers. I even tried adding caraway, poppy, fennel, and sesame seeds like my one of my favorite restaurants, Nookie's in Greenport, NY.
👷🏽♀️ In Progress
I only have so much baking energy, so I've put a pin in these recipes and will update this post as I make them over the next two months:
- 🍩 Cruellers (aka fried choux) ("An Afternoon")
- 🍨 Hibiscus and Watermelon Sorbet AND Pear, White Wine, and Ginger Sorbet
- 🍌 Banana Pudding Pie (including the recipe for Savoiardi cookies) ("A Day")
Cruellers: Back when I worked at a cafe-bakery, we made yeasted donuts, cake donuts, and cruellers. The cruellers were my favorite--crisp outside, soft and buttery inside. I didn't realize until then that cruellers were just fried choux pastry.
Sorbets: Not sure when I'll tackle these since my freezer space is super limited. The recipe requires either an ice cream machine (my freezer bowl won't fit) OR freezing the sorbet base and blending until smooth in a food processor (mine isn't large or powerful enough).
Banana pudding pie: This had the most components of the Sift recipes I'm interested in making at the moment: cocoa crust, Savoiardi cookies (aka ladyfingers), caramel sauce, crème légère, sweet whipped cream, AND dark chocolate shavings. Though it's listed under "A Day" (7 hours total), I plan to split it across two days. Don't want to get tired enough to make mistakes!
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