“The fine arts are five in number, namely: painting, sculpture, poetry, music, and architecture, the principal branch of the latter being pastry.” Marie-Antoine Carême, early 19th century Our ancestors have been pounding, prepping and eating grains and nuts since way before the Neolithic period and settled agriculture. Back in the mists of time, the grains and nuts were most likely consumed as porridge or as flat cakes cooked on stones. The leavening or rising of these cakes must have been a wondrous thing as our ancestors became aware that trapped bubbles of air activated a process that lightened those heavy cakes and their life-giving carbohydrates. One’s daily bread would have been plain. But a celebration bread might have been enriched with oil, eggs, fruits, honey and spices. Out of these special occasion breads grew the idea of cakes. Once the magic of incorporating air into egg whites and then into other foods was discovered, the sponge cake was born. These techniques, particularly the use of chemical agents, developed to ease the lot of the baker. They weren’t inspired by the pursuit of flavour but, plain and simply, as a quick route to turning out light cakes. The recipes in this book are divided into three contrasting techniques and historical phases. Namely, yeast-risen, egg-lightened and chemically risen. The recipes vary in difficulty, the most challenging being the laminated doughs (croissants and lardy cake), the easiest being the biscuits. The cakes, pastries and biscuits that are included all have virtues outside the crude attraction of fat and sugar.