CCC Library Culinary Resources

Our library at CCC has many resources for Culinary and Baking and Pasty students. It is enjoyable to go there and look through the shelves at the available books covering many epicurean subjects.

My Artisan Bread class will soon assist Chef Summers in creating a gingerbread house in the image of our new culinary building. For some basic understanding of gingerbread house construction, I found this book in the library. Although published in 1999, the basic techniques described apply to current construction.

Hans Welker of the Culinary Institute of America published Professional Bread Baking this year (2017).  This is an excellent resource for a baker or student. Typically, the book opens with wonderful and useful information such as functions of ingredients, needed equipment, global breads, and history of breads. Of most interest to me were the Baguettes made with pate ferment, poolish, and levain. It would be interesting to bake baguettes with the three different pre-ferments and compare the differences.  The recipes are designed for production of large amounts. The student or home baker would need to carefully reconfigure the yield.

At the library is a small collection of Art Culinaire: The International Magazine in Good Taste. This urbane magazine is published in New Jersey, recipes, chefs, and ingredients from around the world are explored. From peacock eggs to dabbawala, someone interested in the unusual and trendy in the food world, this might be the book for you. The food photography alone is worth the time to investigate this collection of books.