Salt and Straw Cookbook Review

Salt and Straw Ice Cream Cookbook

Continuing with last week's theme, ice cream, for our cookbook review of the week, we decided to bring you the Salt and Straw Cookbook Review.

Based out of Portland, Oregon, Salt & Straw is the brainchild of two cousins, Tyler and Kim Malek, who had a vision but no recipes. They turned to their friends for advice - chefs, chocolatiers, brewers, and food experts of all kinds - and what came out is a super-simple base that takes five minutes to make, and an ice cream company that sees new flavors and inspiration everywhere they look.

In Salt and Straw Cookbook you will use their base recipe to make dozens of Salt & Straw’s most beloved, unique (and a little controversial) flavors, including Sea Salt with Caramel Ribbons, Roasted Strawberry and Toasted White Chocolate, and Buttered Mashed Potatoes and Gravy.

This book reveals what they’ve learned, how to tap your own creativity, and how to invent flavors of your own, based on whatever you see around you. Because ice cream isn’t just a thing you eat, it’s a way to live.

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A Must for Any Ice Cream Fanatic

Over the past month, we have been playing a lot with ice cream thanks to the Salt and Straw Cookbook. In this book, Tyler teaches everyone the basics of ice cream and tests the limits of everyone's imagination through recipes like Salted Turkey Caramel.

Although this book it’s not quite a cold science textbook if you read it front to back you’ll accumulate enough knowledge through tips and techniques to churn a pint out of pretty much anything in your pantry. Like the milk bar cookbooks by Christina Tosi, Salt & Straw takes their mother recipes, riffing with childlike creativity.

The chapters in Salt and Straw Cookbook are arranged in a mostly logical fashion. They follow Salt & Straw own internal calendar of rotating seasonal flavors, jumping from the shop’s “Classics” (Sea Salt with Caramel Ribbons) to its “Brewers Series” (Smoked Hefeweizen) and “Spooktacular” flavors (Essence of Ghost).

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Unique Flavors

If there is one thing this book is known for, it is its unique flavor combinations. Aside from classics like Double-Fold Vanilla ice cream, each recipe shows innovation by pairing unique flavors, yet showing restraint by not making recipes too “extra.”

We believe that not everyone will ferment their own lactobacillus-hop syrup or meltdown Swedish Fish for “tartare.” Garam Masala Cauliflower Ice cream will definitely not be for everyone, but despite all the crazy combinations in Salt and Straw Cookbook, you'll have three main recipes, Ice Cream, Gelato, and Dairy Free base, that work as foundations for all the other recipes.

These 3 bases are essentials in this book. They are all damn easy, rich, and incredibly consistent thanks to a few food science hacks, like xanthan gum. We like these bases so much that we use them in all our ice cream recipes. It's like having a really good soup stock that you can play with it in a hundred different ways. Literally, if you can dream it, you can make it.

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At the End of Salt and Straw Cookbook Review

Salt and Straw cookbook is a must for any lover of ice creams and any at-home professional cook looking to master the frozen arts. Baking and ice cream-making require precision as well as a practical understanding of chemistry and physics. Salt and Straw explains these concepts in a simple, straightforward way that will appeal to the rookie cook as well as the veteran molecular gastronomer. If you are feeling adventurous and want to try something new, this book is what you are looking for.