In COMFORT BAKING, Stephanie Wise --- the creator of the long-running blog “A Girl Versus Dough” --- offers her most cherished recipes, along with sage advice on temperatures, proportions and subtleties of ingredients, arraying the finished products in delectable color.

A personable introduction reveals how Wise came to the kitchen starting in her college years and then combined her journalistic aspirations with her clear talents in “cozy” cuisine by blogging. This is followed by helpful preparatory sections. “Baking Tips” includes measuring techniques and advises using the center oven rack; in “Common Ingredients,” Wise recommends unsalted butter and alerts readers to the possible perils of using the wrong kind of chocolate; and “Common Equipment” presents, among other tips, her favorite brand of cast iron skillet --- Lodge.

"Large, bright and enjoyably readable, COMFORT BAKING will make a significant addition to any kitchen shelf."

Having announced that each grouping of recipes will start with the simplest so that even a baker new to the tasks can begin to get a grasp of the art, Wise opens with her Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread. It takes 10 minutes to prepare, one hour to cook, and can be saved at room temperature for five days or frozen for up to three months. These details are repeated diligently in each offering. Every recipe is accompanied by at least one high-quality photograph, mostly taken by Wise. One of the more complicated productions --- the last in the “Breakfast and Brunch” segment --- is Braided Raspberry and Cream Cheese Bread. The very name excites the palate; its production is challenging but mercifully graced with 10 photos depicting each step in the process.

Most of Wise’s concoctions are sweet, employing white or brown sugar, honey and fruits. But some, such as Mom’s Shepherd’s Pie and Chicken Tamale Pie, appear in a segment titled “Meals to Bring to Family and Friends,” their rich, spicy ingredients adding further appeal to the total aggregation.

Large, bright and enjoyably readable, COMFORT BAKING will make a significant addition to any kitchen shelf. Wise writes with zeal and personal outreach, supplying her own experiences, anecdotes and philosophy --- gentle and Christian-based --- with each recipe. She has gathered a weighty share of information needed to create these delightful confections and tangy main dishes. Each is infused with her hope that all readers and recipe experimenters will want to try and share her culinary offerings, and, with each new triumph, will move on confidently to the next dish.